Premium
The Use of Trait Labels in Making Psychological Inferences
Author(s) -
Heyman Gail D.,
Gelman Susan A.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
child development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.103
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1467-8624
pISSN - 0009-3920
DOI - 10.1111/1467-8624.00044
Subject(s) - psychology , trait , developmental psychology , character (mathematics) , nice , affect (linguistics) , social psychology , cognitive psychology , communication , geometry , mathematics , computer science , programming language
Three studies investigated children's capacity to use trait labels as tools for making inferences about mental states. For example, knowledge that a story character is “nice” as opposed to “mean” could lead to predictions that the character would respond with greater negative affect upon discovering that his or her action had made someone upset. Study 1 ( N = 48) examined whether participants (kindergartners, second graders, fifth graders, and adults) would make different psychological inferences based on whether a character was labeled as “nice” versus “mean.” Study 2 ( N = 30) examined the same issue with 4‐year‐olds using a simpler methodology. Study 3 ( N = 30) extended the results of Study 2, by examining whether describing characters as “shy” versus “not shy” would lead 4‐year‐olds to make different mental state inferences. Taken together, these findings suggest that even for young children, trait labels can serve as a basis for making nonobvious inferences. Developmental differences are discussed.