A reexamination of developmental changes in causal attributions.

Abstract

The current study examined young children's use of the presence or absence of extrinsic reward to make inferences about the intrinsic motivation of another person. Previous research indicates that most kindergartners do not use a discounting heuristic, but it was hypothesized that they may have misinterpreted the questions asked. Kindergarten, second, and fourth graders were presented stories about children who were rewarded or not rewarded for performing various activities Two forms of questioning about motivation were compared. When a traditional form was used, kindergartners did not show evidence of a discounting heuristic. When the questions were adjusted to ask more specifically about intrinsic motivation, children at all grade levels appeared to use a discounting heuristic. Results are discussed in terms of the parameters of the attributional effects, the possible mechanisms responsible for the phenomena, and the significance of the findings for other developmental research using self-report techniques.In Kelley's (1973) discussion of attribution, an attempt was made to understand the processes by which an individual comes to attribute behavior to internal or external sources. The most interesting cases involved the presence of multiple causes, any of which might be sufficient to produce the behavior. Here, Kelley proposed that when a possible extrinsic cause was present, an observer may "discount" the causal importance of intrinsic causes.Recently, several investigators have begun to explore the development of such attributional schemata. In 1973, Lepper, Greene, and Nisbett showed that preschool children who were rewarded for performing an attractive activity showed less interest in that activity during a subsequent free play period than did children who had engaged in the activity without extrinsic reward. Lepper et al. (1973) termed this phenomenon overjustification; using Kelley's (l973) model, the relevant cognitive process would be the discounting of an intrinsic cause (interest) in the presence of an extrinsic cause (reward). Such research appears to support the premise that very young children can use the discounting principle for self-perception. Subsequent investigators, however, have questioned whether 5-to 7-year-old children actually attribute behavior in the same way as the use of the discounting principle would

Social behaviour and illness information interact to influence the peer acceptance of children with chronic illness

“…Kassin, Lowe, & Gibbons, 1980;Kelley, 1973), and cognitive bias theory (Curtis & Schildhaus, 1980;Dalenberg et al, 1984) are consistent with this pattern and may underlie it. Speci cally, children described as aggressive and ill were rated as behaving more properly than expected and were rated as more acceptable than an additive model would predict.…”

“…Discounting, an attribution principle (e.g. Kassin, Lowe, & Gibbons, 1980;Kelley, 1973), and cognitive bias theory (Curtis & Schildhaus, 1980;Dalenberg et al, 1984) are consistent with this pattern and may underlie it. These theories suggest that when presented with an aggressive chronically ill child, the peer may attribute the aggressive behaviour to illness, removing blame from the child and potentially decreasing peer rejection (e.g.…”

“…The augmentation principle states that when a behaviour is enacted despite external constraints, the action tends to be attributed to the extra efforts or characteristics of the actor (Kelley, 1973). The second tenet of cognitive bias theory holds that children prefer to attribute positive actions to internal causes (Curtis & Schildhaus, 1980;Dalenberg et al, 1984), again bolstering acceptance ( Juvonen, 1991;Sigelman & Begley, 1987). Taken together, these theories predict that when illness is seen as a constraint against the enactment of prosocial behaviour, then a prosocial child with chronic illness may seem more likeable than a similarly prosocial healthy child.…”

Young Children's Apologies to their Siblings

“…However, young children are often required by their parents or other adults to offer apologies to one another (‘Say you're sorry’). In this case, it is possible for children to simply echo the words without fully understanding their pragmatic implications and for others to interpret their utterances as obedience to authorities and rather than sincere expressions of regret (Dalenberg, Bierman, & Furman, 1984; Karniol & Ross, 1976, 1979). We sought evidence, in the apologies offered and in siblings' reactions to them, of children's sensitivity to the functions served by apologies and the meaning associated with various forms of apologies.…”

On the Acquisition of the Discounting Principle: An Experimental Test of a Social-Developmental Model

“…The acquisition of such a schema is thus tied to a particular level of cognitive development and the skills that define it. In contrast, however, experiments designed to "simplify" the stimulus and response components of the discounting task have met with a good deal of success (e.g., Dalenberg, Bierman, & Furman, 1984;Karniol & Ross, 1979;Kassin & Gibbons, 1981;Shultz & Butkowsky, 1977)-enough to suggest that, at the very least, preschool-age children have the "capacity" to discount in their social perceptions. This kind of position was advanced by Morgan (1983), who concluded that "young children may not possess the cognitive structures postulated by the self-perception models" (p. 818).…”