Preschoolers’ Beliefs About the Stability of Antisocial Behavior: Implications for Navigating Social Challenges

Abstract

The relation between 3-to 5-year-old children's beliefs about sociomoral stability (the tendency for antisocial behavior to remain stable over time) and their reasoning about peer interactions was examined. Participants were 100 preschoolers enrolled in a Head Start program. Children who endorsed sociomoral stability beliefs were less likely than their peers to make prosocial inferences, were rated by their teachers as less likely to engage in prosocial behavior, and were more likely to endorse the use of aggression to solve conflict with peers. These findings suggest that as early as preschool, children have general patterns of beliefs about the stability of antisocial behavior that predict a tendency to de-emphasize prosocial strategies that can mediate social challenges.

Preschoolers use trait-relevant information to evaluate the appropriateness of an aggressive response

“…For example, when treating the dependent variables continuously, explicitly endorsing hitting the story character was often associated with reports that it was a better idea to hit. These findings are consistent with prior research suggesting that among preschoolers, some children are more likely than others to hold beliefs supporting the use of aggression [e.g., Giles and Heyman, 2003]. …”

“…A second goal of Study 2 was to investigate whether the observed effect of trait-relevant information in Study 1 would still be obtained if yet another assessment of approval of aggression were used. To that end, children in Study 2 were simply asked if it would be "okay" to hit the story character, a methodology that has been used frequently in studies of children's endorsement of aggression [Henry et al, 2000;Huesmann and Guerra, 1997;Giles and Heyman, 2003]. …”

“…After each story was presented, participants were asked whether it is okay to hit the story character [following the methodology of Guerra, 1997, andHeyman, 2003]. They were asked, "Some kids would hit [the story character].…”

“…One aspect of children's social cognition that has been of interest to researchers attempting to understand aggression in childhood is the extent to which children endorse, or approve of, the use of aggression as a means of responding to the provocations of others [Coie and Dodge, 1998;Giles and Heyman, 2003;Huesmann and Guerra, 1997;Henry et al, 2000; see also Erdley and Asher, 1998]. The tendency to endorse aggression has been linked to several negative behavioral outcomes, including increased levels of aggressiveness [Erdley and Asher, 1998;Huesmann and Guerra, 1997;Guerra and Slaby, 1989;Gouze, 1987], deficits in prosocial behavior [Erdley and Asher, 1998] 1985;Perry et al, 1986].…”

“…In this article, traitrelevant information refers either to a direct description of a person's trait (e.g., a person described as mean) or to a description of a person's emotional response that would lead others to infer a trait (e.g., a person described as feeling happy when other people get hurt; this would imply meanness). Despite evidence that children's trait reasoning undergoes substantial development during the elementary school years [see Ruble and Dweck, 1995], there is evidence that even young children are capable of using trait descriptions to make some kinds of social inferences, including inferences about the mental states that underlie behavior Gelman, 1999, 2000; see also Giles and Heyman, 2003]. …”