Individual differences in apology development : Elucidation of the mechanism by Social information-processing theory

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 21730535
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Research Field: Educational psychology
• Research Institution: Niimi College
• Principal Investigator: SHIBASAKI Miwa 新見公立短期大学, その他部局等, 講師 (00413542)
• Project Period (FY): 2011-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: 謝罪行動 / 社会的情報処理理論 / 道徳性 / 役割取得 / 感情理解 / 罪悪感

Outline of Final Research Achievements

6 studies are reported that concern social information processing and moral behavior including apology. In Study 1, 2, 3 focused on representation　process, results indicated that 6-year-old and 8-12-year-old children predicted the perpetrators' behavior and moral traits on the basis of new apology information whether they apologized or not in previous conflict situations. In Study 4, 5, which focused on encoding process, results indicated that 4-6-year-old children selected more egocentric problem solving strategies and less moral strategy when victims displayed positive emotion than negative emotion. However 6-year-old children answered more moral strategies as actor’s behaviors with the intervention that promoted them to infer victim’s negative emotion. Study 6 focused on response decision process revealed that 4-6-year-old children were more likely to select apology as actor’s behavior when they were encouraged predicting victim’s emotion and behavior when they were apologized.

Free Research Field

発達心理学