2009 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

Research on the developmental mechanisms of helping and sharing behaviors in early childhood

Research Project

Project/Area Number	20730438
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Research Field	Educational psychology
Research Institution	Kyushu University
Principal Investigator	HISAZAKI Takahiro Kyushu University, 人文学部, 講師 (70412757)
Project Period (FY)	2008 – 2009
Keywords	乳幼児 / 他者意図・情動理解 / 自己意識
Research Abstract	A mother whose child could respond properly to another individual's preference showed more imitative actions of him/her and utterances on his/her affective states during interaction with him/her than that whose child could not. These results suggested that parental imitative actions and utterances on child's mental states might facilitate the development of understanding others' minds. While in Japan a child whose mother was more tend to be disorganized type of attachment was slower in the development of understanding others' minds, in Sri Lanka vice versa. It is necessary to elucidate what cultural properties in care-giving give rise to such a difference between Japan and Sri Lanka.