The Valence Effect And Ages Differences Of Spontaneous Trait Association And Spontaneous Trait Transformation

Trait inferences are very common in our daily life, which reflect individual's perception and interpretation of other people's behaviors. Therefore, trait inferences has captured a lot of attention in the domain of social cognition.When we see Wang Yan voluntarily admits that he broke the vase, we not only construe the behavior itself to be honest but also infer that the actor is an honest person. Such spontaneous trait inferences(STIs) about the actor has been applied to this tendency. Besides, when Li Lei says that someone s voluntarily admits that he broke the vase, we also spontaneously infer the trait “clever” from the third-party's behavior and tend to perceive the informant Li Lei as “clever”. The term spontaneous trait transferences(STTs) about the informant has been applied to this tendency to ascribe the trait implied by a third-party's behavior to the informant.In recent years, considerable research has suggested that though trait inferences are ubiquitous, they are not inevitable, which can be influenced by the features of perceivers, actors and cultures. Those people from collectivistic cultures are more prone to emphasizing situational constraints and are less prone to emphasizing personal disposition as the cause of social behavior. As a result, those individuals from collectivist cultures should be less likely to make STIs from behaviors compared to individuals from individualist cultures. However, recent research demonstrates that those individuals in collectivist cultures actually can make STIs about the actor.Researchers have attempted to investigate the specific mechanisms underlying STIs about the actor and STTs about the informant. Some researchers claim that STIs about the actor and STTs about the informant share a common process that they reflect only the simple associations in memory between the activated trait and the actor/ informant, most researchers tend to hold that STIs about the actor and STTs about the informant reflect different process in nature. Specifically, STIs about the actor are assumed to be an attributional process about behaviors, whereas STTs about the informant are assumed to be a simple associative process in memory. Although those individuals in Chinese cultures may make STIs about the actor, the mechanisms underlying STIs about the actor needed a further investigation.It is important to note that the overwhelming majority of research concerning STIs about the actor and STTs about the informant has focused on adults, but little attention has been paid to the different age children. Noteworthy, the research on age difference of STIs about the actor and STTs about the informant can provide a more complete picture of the developmental trends of STIs about the actor and STTs about the informant, and allow us to better understand the origin of them and the differences between them from a development perspective.In the present article, two studies were conducted to examine the occurrence of STIs about the actor and STTs about the informant in Chinese cultures. The first study which involved two parts(Study 1A and Study 1B) explored the effects of behavior valence on STIs about the actor and STTs about the informant by using the false recognition paradigm. The second study which involved two parts(Study 2A and Study 2B) explored investigate the developmental course of STIs about the actor and STTs about the informant comparing 8-, 9-, 10-, 11-, 12- and 13-year-olds and explored the effects of behavior valence on STIs about the actor and STTs about the informant by using the false recognition paradigm..According to results of data analyses, several conclusions can be drawn as follows:(1) Chinese individuals could make STIs about the actor and STTs about the informant. Moreover, participants made stronger STIs about the actor from negative behaviors than from positive behaviors.(2) Chinese individuals could make STTs about the informant. And the magnitude of STTs about the informant did not vary with behavior valence.(3) All the children age from 8 to 13 could make STIs about the actor, moreover, the magnitude of STIs about the actor increased from ages 8 to 10 years, stabilized at age 10, 11, 12 years, and decreased from ages 12 through 13 years. Furthermore, 9-years and 11-years participants made stronger STIs about the actor from negative behaviors than from positive behaviors.(4) All the children age from 8 to 13 could make STTs about the informant, moreover, the magnitude of STTs about the informant cannot be influence by behavior valence and ages.(5) All the children age from 8 to 13 could make STTs about the informant, and the magnitude of STTs did not vary with age. In all age groups, the magnitude of STIs about the actor was greater than that of STTs about the informant.