Young children are more likely to attribute mental states to characters that belong to the same group as them relative to characters that belong to an outside group, according to findings published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The study shows that 5- and 6-year-olds were more likely to describe interactions between two characters in terms of what they were thinking and feeling when the characters had the same gender or geographic origin as them.
发表在《心理科学》杂志上的新研究结果表明，年幼的孩子更容易自发地把心理状态归因于他们自己的群体，而不是外部群体的特征。该研究表明，5-6岁的孩子更容易描述他们正在想着和感受着的两个特征之间的相互作用，当这些特征有着和他们一样的性别或地理来源时。
“We found that young children were selective in the way they attribute mental states – they were less likely to spontaneously refer to the mind of individuals belonging to a different group,” says researcher Niamh McLoughlin of the University of York. “Our research suggests that, at least from the age of 5, children demonstrate a bias that might be similar to dehumanization – ascribing fewer mental abilities and uniquely human traits to others. In addition, this work illustrates that there are situations in which children are more or less motivated to reason about the minds of other people.”
“我们发现了幼儿对他们的心智状态进行归因的选择方式——他们不太可能自发参考那些属于不同于他的群体之个体的心智。”纽约大学的研究者Niamh McLoughlin说。“我们的研究认为，幼儿至少在5岁时可能显示出了类似于非人性化（dehumanization ）的偏见——将较低的心智能力和独特人性特质归咎于他人。”此外，这项工作表明，有些情况下，儿童或多或少有目地的去思考别人的想法。
Previous research has shown that adults tend to dehumanize people who belong to social groups or categories – for example, race, gender, socioeconomic status – that are different from their own. These “outsiders” are seen as having less intelligence, rationality, and emotional depth relative to those who belong to the in-group. McLoughlin and University of York co-author Harriet Over were interested in investigating the developmental origins of this phenomenon.
先前的研究已经表明，成年人倾向于让隶属于社会团体或类别的人去人性化（dehumanize ），例如，种族，性别，社会经济地位，这些不同于他们自己的特征。这些“局外人”相对于那些属于“群体”的人来说，被认为是智力、理性和情感深度较低的人。McLoughlin和约克大学的合著者Harriet Over对非常有兴趣研究这种现象的发展起源。
“Our aim was to examine whether young children also exhibited this bias with relation to mental state attribution,” says McLoughlin.
麦克朗林说：“我们的目的是考察幼儿是否也表现出与心理归因有关的偏见。”
Adapting an established technique, the researchers showed a total of 128 5- and 6-year-olds animations of a big triangle and a small triangle that seemed to interact, with one triangle seemingly coaxing or surprising the other.
在适应一个既定的技术中，研究人员向128名5～6岁儿童展现了似乎正在互动的一个大三角和一个小三角，其中的一个三角形看上去是哄骗他人的，或是让其他人感到惊讶的。
Each child saw two videos. In one, the triangles were described as having the same gender or coming from the same town as the participant; in the other, the triangles were described as having a different gender or coming from a far-away country. The researchers chose to examine gender because it’s a category that children are particularly sensitive to, while they decided to look at geographic origin because of its relevance to current social and political debates.
每个孩子观看两个视频。在其中一个视频中，三角形被描述为具有相同的性别，或者自同雨来和参与者的城镇；在另一个视频中，三角形被描述为具有不同的性别或来自遥远的国家。研究人员选择检验性别，是因为，性别是孩子们特别敏感的一个范畴，而他们决定研究地理起源，是因为它与当前的社会和政治辩论有关（译者注：这里指美欧移民政策的变化）。
The researchers asked the participants to describe what happened and to rate how much they liked the group discussed in each video.
研究人员要求参与者描述所发生的事情，并评价他们对每个视频中讨论群体的喜欢程度。
Using a predetermined coding scheme, the researchers counted any words that described a character’s thoughts, desires, emotions, intentions, or current states as mental-state terms.
研究人员利用一种预先确定的编码方案，计算描述人物当前状态思想、欲望、情感、意图的心理状态词语。
The data showed that 6 year-olds used more mental-state words overall and a more diverse range of these words compared with children who were one year younger, a finding that highlights the ongoing development of theory-of-mind processes in early childhood.
数据显示，与一岁以下的儿童相比，6岁的青少年使用了更多的心理状态词语，而且这些词语更多样，这一发现凸显了儿童早期心理理论过程的不断发展。
More importantly, both 5- and 6-year-olds used more mental-state terms when they believed the characters had the same gender or home town as opposed to when they had a different one. Six-year-olds also used more diverse mental-state words in describing characters from the same group relative to those from a different group.
更重要的是，5、6岁儿童在使用心理状态术语时，他们认为，这些角色的性别和家乡是相同的，他们之间不存在不同特征的人。六岁的孩子也使用更多样的心理状态词来描述来相同的群体，而不是不同的群体。
This group-based bias extended to direct ratings: Participants also preferred individuals who belonged to their own gender and geographic group.
这种基于群体的偏见扩大了直接评级的范围：参与者也更喜欢同属于自己的性别 与地理群体中个人。
These findings hint at early origins for social phenomena including bias between social groups and dehumanization, the researchers argue.
研究人员认为，这些发现暗示社会现象的早期起源，包括社会群体之间的偏见和 去人性化。
“We plan to use this research as the base for future work examining the social consequences of biased mental-state attribution, such as the extent to which children help members of an outgroup,” says McLoughlin. “We hope that this work can ultimately inform research-led interventions that aim to foster positive intergroup relations.”
“我们计划用这项研究作为未来工作的基础， 以检验具有偏见的心理状态归因的社会后果。例如，儿童帮助一个外部成员的程度，”McLoughlin说。“我们希望这项工作最终能为旨在促进积极的群体关系的研究提供指导。”
This research was funded by Economic and Social Research Council Grant ES/K006702/1 (to H. Over).
这项研究是由经济和社会研究理事会资助ES/K006702/1
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