Coding And Attribution Of Mixed-field Events In School-age Children

The complexity of mixed-domain events is similar to the ambiguity of the intention of situation in social information processing.The integration model of moral-social information processing has become an important way to explore the development of children's social cognition.In the present study,we measured the encoding level and attribution characteristics of 124 elementary children(6-to 11-year-old)in three kinds of mixed domains with different severity by using the classical story-scene method,trying to further understand the development of social cognition of school-age children.The study included two parts,which both adopted a mixed experimental design of 3(grade:one,three,five)× 3(domain type:moral-conventional,moral-individual,conventional-individual)× 2(severity:low,high)to investigate the encoding level and attribution(including the attribution of intention and the judgment reasoning).In study 1,the self-report method was used to examine the comprehensive coding and attribution characteristics of children in mixed-domain events(including attribution of hostile intentions and judgment reasoning).In study 2,the coding sensitivity,accuracy and reaction time of in mixed-domain events and the attribution characteristics of hostile intention were measured by response-time method.The results of the first study showed that:(1)in oral encoding,the overall coding scores of grade 3 and 5 were higher than that of grade 1,and there was no significant difference between grade 3 and grade 5;(2)in the field of moral-convention,children were more comprehensive in encoding events in low-severity mixed areas than in high-severity ones;(3)in intention attribution,there were significant differences in moral-conventional fields among children in different grades,and higher grade children reported a higher tendency of hostile attribution;(4)in the judgment reasoning,there was a grade difference between moral-conventional and moral-personal events,the third grade was more inclined to the attribution of conventional reasons,and the first grade paid more attention to the actual consequences.The results of the second study showed that:(1)there were significant differences in encoding and reaction time among the three mixed domain events;(2)the sensitivity and accuracy of encoding were significantly influenced by domain type and severity.In moral-conventional and moral-personal domain,the higher severity held higher sensitivity and accuracy,but the opposite was found in conventional-individual domain.(3)there were significant differences in the attribution of hostile intention in moral-custom and moral-personal fields,and the attribution tendency of hostile intention in fifth grade was the highest;(4)the effects of domain type and severity on the reaction time of attribution of hostile intention were significant.The reaction time of high-severity event was longer than that of low-severity event,and this significance varied in different domains in the three grades?Combined with the results of study 1 and 2,conclusion can be drawn that the information processing level of school-age children to mixed-domain events is developing continuously,which is reflected in the comprehensiveness,accuracy and response time of encoding.Although children generally do not tend to attribute to hostile intention,the attribution of hostile intention increases with age,the increases appear in domains related with morality.In addition,children of different grades showed different tendency in the judgment reasoning of mixed-field events,and third-grade children showed obvious preference for attribution of customary reasons.In mixed-domain events,both the encoding level of school-age children and the attribution of hostile intention are affected by the type and severity of the event.