Children's Cognition of Deviant Behavior, Prosocail behavior and Transmission of Parental Values

Research Project

Project/Area Number	13610139
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Section	一般
Research Field	教育・社会系心理学
Research Institution	Shimane University
Principal Investigator	MURASE Toshiki Shimane University, Faculty of Law and Literature, Professor, 法文学部, 教授 (70210036)
Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha)	TAKAI Naomi Kyoto Notre Dame University, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Associate Professor, 人間文化学部, 助教授 (20268501) TAKAI Hiromi Shimane University, Faculty of Education, Associate Professor, 教育学部, 助教授 (80290427)
Project Period (FY)	2001 – 2002
Project Status	Completed (Fiscal Year 2002)
Budget Amount *help	¥1,900,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,900,000) Fiscal Year 2002: ¥1,100,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,100,000) Fiscal Year 2001: ¥800,000 (Direct Cost: ¥800,000)
Keywords	Correspondence bias / Self-improvement / Moral and conventional transgression / Understanding of guilt and shame / Transmission of parental values / Modeling effect / Middle childhood / Development / 対応バイアス / 向社会的行動 / 非社会的行動 / 自律的価値形成 / 男女差 / 逸脱行動 / 気持ち / guilt / shame / 価値継承
Research Abstract	Three studies investigated children's cognition of deviant behavior, prosocial behavior and transmission of parental values. Study 1 investigated whether children constructed trait inferences from information about the psychological process of a protagonist. When the protagonist psychologically showed self-improvement such as 'hansei' after not helping his friend, 3^<rd> and 5^<th> graders as well as undergraduate students corrected the negative evaluation for the protagonist. The prosocial judgment at the decision making had no effect on the trait inference for the 3^<rd> and 5^<th> grades, but had a marginal effect for undergraduate students. Study 2 revealed that in scenario-based questions about moral and conventional transgressions, younger children always inferred protagonists' prosocial behaviors after both guilt-inducing situations and shame-inducing situations. Meanwhile adults made inferences that in less serious transgressions and shame-inducing situations, protagonists might display asocial behaviors mediating shameful feelings. Older children aged 12 years old sometimes made adult-like inferences and sometimes like younger children. The results showing that their inferences were much like adults' but not the same means that these transitional processes may continue during adolescence. In Study 3, the reasoning concerning the transmission of parental values was investigated in Japanese 5^<th> graders by using four stories. In results, 5^<th> graders thought that parents had effects on their children to shape their values in each story. Especially female 5^<th> graders thought that protagonists would acquire one value by observing parental behaviors more than by being taught the value directly. The result suggested the modeling effect in female 5^<th> graders. These studies showed the information of psychological process have an effect on Japanese children's cognition about behaviors from the middle childhood on.