Who feels happier right now?: The impact of temporal distance on children's judgements of emotional intensity

IF 2.6 3区心理学 Q2 PSYCHOLOGY, DEVELOPMENTAL

British Journal of Developmental Psychology Pub Date : 2024-06-24 DOI:10.1111/bjdp.12505

Bronwyn O'Brien, Mohamed Ebeid, Cristina M. Atance

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Abstract

Do children consider temporal distance in their reasoning about the world? Using a novel method that relied minimally on verbal ability, we asked N = 106 3- to 6-year-olds to judge which of two characters felt more ‘happy’/‘sad’ right now: one engaging in a pleasant/unpleasant activity tomorrow or another engaging in this same activity when they are a year older. That is, we examined whether children understood that the closer in time a future event, the more intense the currently felt emotion. Starting at age 4, children correctly judged which child was more ‘happy’/‘sad’ right now. However, 4- to 6-year-olds tended not to explain their judgements by referring to temporal distance, per se. Results suggest that children are sensitive to temporal distance early in development, but do not yet verbally express this understanding. Implications for theories about children's future thinking and future areas of research are discussed.

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现在谁感觉更快乐？时间距离对儿童情绪强度判断的影响。

儿童在推理世界时会考虑时间距离吗？我们采用了一种尽量不依赖语言能力的新方法，让 106 名 3 至 6 岁的儿童判断两个角色中哪一个现在感觉更 "快乐"/"悲伤"：一个角色明天会从事一项令人快乐/不愉快的活动，另一个角色则会在他们长大一岁后从事同样的活动。也就是说，我们要研究的是，儿童是否理解未来事件发生的时间越近，当前感受到的情绪就越强烈。从 4 岁开始，儿童就能正确判断哪个孩子现在更 "快乐"/"悲伤"。但是，4 到 6 岁的儿童往往不会用时间距离本身来解释他们的判断。研究结果表明，儿童在发育初期对时间距离很敏感，但还不能用语言表达这种理解。本文讨论了对儿童未来思维理论的影响以及未来的研究领域。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

British Journal of Developmental Psychology PSYCHOLOGY, DEVELOPMENTAL-

CiteScore

4.50

自引率

0.00%

发文量

期刊介绍： The British Journal of Developmental Psychology publishes full-length, empirical, conceptual, review and discussion papers, as well as brief reports, in all of the following areas: - motor, perceptual, cognitive, social and emotional development in infancy; - social, emotional and personality development in childhood, adolescence and adulthood; - cognitive and socio-cognitive development in childhood, adolescence and adulthood, including the development of language, mathematics, theory of mind, drawings, spatial cognition, biological and societal understanding; - atypical development, including developmental disorders, learning difficulties/disabilities and sensory impairments;