Preschoolers' understanding of stable and changeable characteristics

Bales, Diane; Sera, Maria D.

doi:10.1016/0885-2014(95)90019-5

Cited by 12 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Los datos de este estudio son similares a los obtenidos por Heyman y Diesendruck (2002) con niños cubano-americanos bilingües menores de 7 años. Los autores plantean que la escasa influencia de ser/estar se debería a que los niños conciben los rasgos de manera esencialista y que, conforme avanza el desarrollo, esta tendencia disminuye (Bales & Sera, 1995). En el presente estudio la actuación del grupo de 12 años podría interpretarse en ese mismo sentido, pero para ello sería necesario investigar todos los supuestos del esencialismo, cuestión que no ha sido el objetivo de esta investigación.…”

Section: Discussionunclassified

¿Es Despistado o Está Despistado?: Infiriendo la Estabilidad de los Rasgos Psicológicos

Boudon

Soto²

2011

Psykhe

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Un rasgo psicológico descrito con el verbo ser se considera más estable que uno descrito con estar (Heyman & Diesendruck, 2002). Para establecer si esta distinción lingüística afecta a las inferencias sobre características personales se realizaron 2 estudios complementarios con 62 escolares en diferente nivel de desarrollo (7 y 12 años) y 108 estudiantes universitarios monolingües de español peninsular, de nivel socioeconómico medio, residentes en Madrid, España. En ambos los participantes se distribuyeron en dos condiciones experimentales (ser y estar) y respondieron a una tarea de inferencias en que se describían características psicológicas y conductas asociadas a estas. Se realizaron análisis multivariados y de medidas repetidas considerando la edad y la condición experimental. Solo los adultos y los niños mayores infirieron que los rasgos descritos con ser eran más estables que los descritos con estar, pero los menores en ambas condiciones experimentales infirieron que los rasgos eran estables. El efecto de ser y estar en las inferencias es relevante, pero debe interpretarse considerando las diferencias evolutivas.Palabras clave: inferencias, lenguaje y cognición, verbos copulativos A psychological trait described with the verb ser is considered more stable than one expressed by using estar (Heyman & Diesendruck, 2002). In order to establish whether ser/estar verbal forms affect inferences about psychological traits, 2 studies were carried out on school children in different developmental levels (N = 62, 7 and 12 years) and university students (N = 108), monolingual speakers of Peninsular Spanish, from medium socioeconomic status, resident in Madrid, Spain. In both studies participants were randomly assigned to one of 2 experimental conditions (ser and estar) and responded to an inference task which consisted of the description of psychological characteristics and behaviors associated with them. Factorial and repeated measures analysis of variance were performed. Only the adults and older children inferred that the traits described with ser were more stable than those expressed with estar. The younger children inferred that the traits were stable in both experimental conditions. The effect of the linguistic distinction on inferences is significant, but should be interpreted bearing developmental differences in mind.Las investigaciones translingüísticas realizadas en las últimas décadas sobre distintos sistemas semánticos han puesto de manifiesto la existencia de importantes diferencias en la forma en que las lenguas analizan y organizan el mundo (véanse en Dasen & Mishra, 2010 y en Guo et al. 2009). Los datos empíricos obtenidos en dichos estudios han dado lugar al resurgimiento del antiguo debate -la hipótesis del relativismo lingüístico planteada por Sapir (1949) y Whorf (1956)-sobre las relaciones entre lenguaje y pensamiento.

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Section: Discussionunclassified

¿Es Despistado o Está Despistado?: Infiriendo la Estabilidad de los Rasgos Psicológicos

Boudon

Soto²

2011

Psykhe

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“…Observable behavior may be thus considered diagnostic of a person's essential goodness or badness. It is also possible that preschool children who endorse sociomoral stability have a broader tendency to view a wide range of human characteristics in essentialist ways (see Bales & Sera, 1995, for evidence that some preschool children have a tendency to view variable human characteristics, such as mood, in an essentialist manner).…”

Section: Developmental Context Of Stability Beliefsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Giles

Heyman

2003

Social Development

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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.

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“…Recent research on children's understanding of biology has raised the possibility that even pre-school children hold an intuitive theory that allows them to distinguish between animate and inanimate beings and to think in an essentialist fashion about species differences (Backscheider, Shatz, & Gelman, 1994;Bales & Sera, 1995;Coley, 1995;Gelman & Wellman, 1991;Hirschfeld, 1995;Inagaki & Hatano, 1993;Springer, 1996;Springer & Keil, 1991;Taylor, 1996). For example, Backscheider et al (1994) questioned 3-and 4-year-olds about mechanisms of growth and repair.…”

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confidence: 99%

Understanding constraints on inheritance: Evidence for biological thinking in early childhood

Giménez

Harris

2002

British J of Dev Psycho

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Children ranging from 3 to 6 years old were given three tasks to assess their understanding of race as an invariant trait that is biologically transmitted from parents to offspring. Children were asked to: (1) pair offspring with their biological parents on the basis of the physical characteristics associated with race in the face of a distracting cue, namely clothes colour; (2) pair offspring with their biological parents in the context of a trans‐racial adoption; and (3) assess the possibility of changes to their own racial identity. Analysis of pairing responses and justifications showed that 3‐ and 4‐ year‐old children have a limited knowledge of the inheritance and invariance of such racial characteristics, whereas 5‐ and 6‐year‐old children display more consolidated knowledge and coherent responding across the different tasks.

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Preschoolers' understanding of stable and changeable characteristics

Cited by 12 publications

References 15 publications

¿Es Despistado o Está Despistado?: Infiriendo la Estabilidad de los Rasgos Psicológicos

¿Es Despistado o Está Despistado?: Infiriendo la Estabilidad de los Rasgos Psicológicos

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

Understanding constraints on inheritance: Evidence for biological thinking in early childhood

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