3-075 - Attributions of Character in Young Children

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Psychologists have long been interested in how humans explain behavior, and how readily we appeal to stable aspects of character as well as to the powerful influence of the situation (Heider, 1958; Ross, 1977). Children make less frequent trait attributions (Kalish, 2002), and require more behavioral evidence to do so (Boseovski & Lee, 2006) leading some to argue that children are limited in their attributions of character until 7 to 8 years of age (Ruble & Dweck, 1995). The papers in this symposium reexamine children’s attribution of traits, demonstrate that attributions of character feature early in children’s judgments, learning and memory, and highlight new ways of understanding the role of character in cognitive development.

The first paper presents behavioral evidence suggesting that 15-month-old infants monitor and modulate their own behavior in response to an experimenter’s past emotional reactions, suggestive that trait attributions may emerge earlier than previously thought. The second presentation demonstrates that older children readily utilize extremely limited information, such as still images of faces, to generate character judgments of strength, intelligence and kindness. Finally, the third presentation examines how children generate different types of character attributions, specifically those in the moral (nice/mean) and in the epistemic (competent/incompetent) domains, exploring both children’s source memory and semantic learning from moral and epistemic agents. Aided by a discussant with expertise in these areas, central issues will include the developmental functions of children’s character attribution, the domains where one might predict its emergence and the potential roles of nature and experience.

Sub Unit

• Social Cognition

Chairs

• Melissa Koenig, University of Minnesota

• Betty Repacholi, University of Washington

Discussant

• Yarrow Dunham, [email protected]

Individual Presentations

• Infants' attributions about other people's emotional dispositions - Presenting Author: Betty Repacholi, University of Washington; Andrew N. Meltzoff, University of Washington

• From faces to traits to behavior: Social inferences in children match those of adults - Presenting Author: Sa-kiera Tiarra Jolynn Hudson, Harvard University; Tessa Elizabeth Sadie Charlesworth, Harvard University; Mahzarin R. Banaji, Harvard University

• Attributions of Moral and Epistemic Virtue: Effects on Children’s Learning and Memory - Presenting Author: Melissa Koenig, University of Minnesota; Elizabeth Hoff Stephens, University of Minnesota; Kiley Hamlin, University of British Columbia