The Development Of Self - Display Of Children Aged 4-9 In Violation Situation

Self-presentation is the essential component of social interaction, which refers to the process that individuals attempt to control their desired impressions formed among others. Compared to the literature available abroad, there are few researches about children’s self-presentation in China. This study, choosing99children aged4-9as participants, used the imaginary rule violation stories to examine the development of self-presentational consciousness, and explored the reasoning about the transgressors’self-presentation by apology and excuse.Studyl examined children’s reasoning about the motives of coping strategies with the scenario approach, and asked the children to evaluate the violator’s likability after apology, excuse and no account. Results showed that:(1) Even4-to-5-year-old children think apologies could bring more positive social evaluations than excuses, and this age group begun to refer the self-presentational motives to reason why the transgressors use apologies or excuses.(2)Reference to self-presentational motives was increasing with age when the children explained the different coping strategies.(3)Both in moral and social-conventional violations, children believed apologies were more effective than excuses, and could relieve punishment and improve public identification.(4)Children were more likely to identify pro-social motives for apologies, and more likely to identify self-protective motives for excuses. Study2also used scenario approach to explore how the children evaluate the transgressors’ self-presentation when audiences were familiar peers and adults. Results showed that:(1) The audience type did not influence children’s evaluation significantly.(2) Children would rather use apology in social-conventional violations than excuse, and use excuse in moral violations than apology, but this difference was not significant in audience type.In summary, the study revealed the developmental characteristics of children’s self-presentation consciousness in China, and explored the influence on self-presentational strategies made by the audience type. Both studyl and study2adopted the rule violation story which was the common research method in children’s social cognition, and made useful quests about children’s self-presentation for domestic research, meanwhile. The results provided the theoretical basis for the teachers and parent to judge the children’s transgression correctly.