3-157 - Early trait reasoning – scope and limits

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Attributing traits in the service of action prediction and social decision-making is a fundamental feature of adult social cognition. Developmentally, much existing research suggests that trait ascription is a surprisingly late achievement and that children do not engage in trait attribution and inference until about 8-9 years (e.g. Rholes & Ruble, 1984). We challenge this view in this symposium, presenting converging evidence that much younger children’s reasoning about the self and others can be and often is based on the ascription of specific traits. At the same time, we highlight conditions in which such competence can be masked.
The first two talks address trait inferences when reasoning about others, presenting cross-cultural evidence for early competence in third-person trait ascription (Talk 1) and documenting specific conditions that limit this competence such as task structures (Talk 2). Analogously, Talks 3 and 4 present evidence for preschoolers’ trait-inferences when reasoning about themselves (Talk 3) and document the conditions that limit the competence for first-person trait inferences, such as contexts of social comparison (Talk 4).
Together, these studies supply clear and converging evidence that children from ages 4-5 already perceive and conceptualize themselves and others in terms of specific traits, in contrast to much previous literature on trait ascription in children. The present research thus draws a much more fine-grained picture of young children’s first- and third-person trait ascription in terms of competence and limiting performance factors, providing further insight into how we reason about ourselves and others, even at an early age.

Sub Unit

• Social Cognition

Chairs

• Jonas Hermes, University of Göttingen

• Hannes Rakoczy, University of Göttingen

Individual Presentations

• Trait inference and attribution among pre-primary school children across cultures - Presenting Author: Eva E Chen, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology; Kathleen Helen Corriveau, Boston University; Paul Lansley Harris, Harvard Graduate School of Education

• Preschoolers‘ use of trait reasoning and global impression formation in their selective social learning - Presenting Author: Jonas Hermes, University of Göttingen; Tanya Behne, University of Göttingen, Germany; Hannes Rakoczy, University of Göttingen

• Young Children’s Self-Conceptions Are More Complex and Differentiated than Previously Theorized - Presenting Author: Andrei Cimpian, New York University; Matthew D. Hammond, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand; Giulia Mazza, University of Illinois; Grace Corry, University of Illinois

• “Who did better than me?” Effects of comparison peer expertise and traits on children’s self-evaluations - Presenting Author: Candace Lapan, University of North Carolina at Greensboro; Janet Boseovski, University of North Carolina at Greensboro; Valeriya Tsygankova, University of North Carolina at Greensboro; Carmin Ball, University of North Carolina at Greensboro; Kimberly Elizabeth Marble, University of North Carolina at Greensboro