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Who are Pollyanna Preschoolers Developing a benign attribution bias

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Pollyanna Preschoolers show fewer hostile attributions and fewer externalizing ... 'Pollyanna' Preschool 'bias' toward benign interpretations of social misfortune ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Who are Pollyanna Preschoolers Developing a benign attribution bias


1
Who are Pollyanna Preschoolers? Developing a
benign attribution bias
  • Dr Kevin Runions
  • School Of Psychology
  • Edith Cowan University
  • k.runions_at_ecu.edu.au

2
Research Traditions Antisocial Vs. Prosocial
Development
  • Although normative processes have been the focus
    of attention in many aspects of developmental
    psychology, social developmental research has
    focused a lot of energy on studying antisocial,
    aggressive and disruptive developmental pathways
  • Much less focus on prosocial development
  • Can research on prosocial development give us
    clues on how to reduce antisocial development?

3
Prosocial Development
  • Behaviours that are positively responsive to
    others needs and welfarethat are helpful and
    affiliative responses to otherssuch as
    assisting, sharing, being kind and considerate,
    comforting, cooperating, protecting someone from
    harm, rescuing someone from danger, and feeling
    empathy and sympathy
  • Radke-Yarrow Zahn-Waxler, 1986, p. 208
  • Research has focused on psychological emotion
    processes related to prosocial development, but
    little connection to childrens social
    information processes

4
Crick and Dodge (1994) Social Information
Processing Model
Kenneth Dodges Social Information Processing
Model (Crick Dodge, 1994)
How do aggressive versus non-aggressive
children 1. Encode information?
Hostile attribution bias
2. Represent or interpret this information?
3. Clarify the goals that are important to them?
4. Generate or plan responses?
5. Select or enact those responses?
5
The Current Study
  • The current study set out to study family
    antecedents of social information processes
    measured in preschool and Year 1 involved in
    antisocial behaviour in Year 1
  • But it may have unveiled something more
    interesting about prosocial development

6
Participants
  • U.S. NICHD Study of Early Child Care
  • 1364 recruited
  • 10 communities
  • followed from birth to Grade 1 (1, 6, 15, 24, 36
    54 months, and again in Year 1)
  • Selective attrition
  • N 896

7
Preschool Hostile Attributions of Intent (HAI)
  • 4 forced-choice Qs
  • Pretend that you are playing catch with a ball.
    A boy named Tim throws the ball and it hits you
    in the back. What do you think happened?
  • 1. Did Tim hit you in the back by accident?
  • 2. Did Tim want to hit you in the back?
  • M 1.65 (SD 1.34) a .65

8
Measures SES and Maternal Predictors
  • Maternal Education (Years)
  • Family Income (1 36 mo.)
  • Maternal Authoritarian Attitudes (1 mo.)
  • Maternal Negative Control (6 36 mo.)
  • Maternal Depression (1 36 mo.)

9
Measures Child Antecedent Predictors
  • Child Temperament -- 6 mo. Infancy Temperament
    Questionnaire, Carey and McDevitt (1978). Factor
    Analyzed
  • Behavioural Inhibition (distress at novel
    situations e.g., pleasant in unfamiliar place
    and rejects new babysitter )
  • Behavioural Activation (surgency toward rewarding
    activities (e.g., active during
    diapering/dressing, reacts strongly to foods)
  • Child Cognitive Functioning (36 mo.) alpha .77.
  • Bracken Scale of Basic Concepts (School
    Readiness subscale)
  • Reynell Language Scales (verbal comp and
    expressive language).

10
Distribution of Preschool HAI (n 896)
11
Distribution of Preschool HAI by Gender
N
?2 8.3, p lt .10
Total Hostile Attributions of Intent
12
Preschool HAI Bivariate Relations with Family
Income (1 36 mo.)
for Dichotomized DV (0 vs. 1-4) t (894) 2.27, p
lt .05
Family Income
0 1 2 3 4
Total Preschool HAI
13
Preschool HAI Bivariate Relation with Maternal
Education
t (894) 3.96, p lt .001
0 1 2 3 4
14
Preschool HAI Bivariate Relations with Maternal
Depression (1 36 mo.)
Maternal Depression
t (894) -1.27, n.s.
0 1 2 3 4
0 1 2 3 4
Total Preschool HAI
15
Preschool HAI Bivariate Relations with Maternal
Authoritarian Attitudes
Authoritarian Attitudes
t (894) -3.91, p lt .001
0 1 2 3 4
Total Preschool HAI
16
Preschool HAI Bivariate Relations with Maternal
Negative Control (6 36 mo.)
Negative Control
t (894) -3.35, p .001
0 1 2 3 4
Total Preschool HAI
17
Preschool HAI Bivariate Relations with Infant
Behavioral Inhibition (6 mo. Mat Report)
Infant Inhibition
t (894) -.33, n.s.
0 1 2 3 4
Total Preschool HAI
18
Preschool HAI Bivariate Relations with Infant
Behavioural Activation (6mo. mat report)
Infant Surgency
t (894) -2.02, p lt .05
0 1 2 3 4
Total Preschool HAI
19
Preschool HAI Bivariate Relations with Child
Cognitive Functioning at 36 Months
Cognitive Scores at 36 months
t (894) 4.82, p lt .001
0 1 2 3 4
Total Preschool HAI
20
Pollyanna Preschoolers?
Hold on! Those arent preschoolers!
Children who report only benign intentions or
accidental causes, even if actions harmful to the
child
21
Measures Year 1 Social Information Processing
  • 8 Qs Social and Physical harm
  • Pretend that you see some kids playing on the
    playground. You would really like to play with
    them, so you go over and ask one of them, a kid
    named Susan, if you can play. Susan says no.
  • Why do you think? M 4.65 (SD 2.05) a .65
  • What would you do? Count of retaliate code
    Range 0 - 8, M .54 (SD 1.29)

22
Relationship of Preschool and Year One HAI
F (1, 894) 14.85, p lt .001

0 1 2 3 4
Preschool HAI
23
Relationship of Preschool and Year One Aggressive
Response Planning
F (1, 894) 2.24, n.s.

0 1 2 3 4
Preschool HAI
24
Relationship of Preschool HAI and Year One
Teacher Reported Externalizing Outcomes
F (1, 894) 23.83, p lt .001
High Low

Externalizing
0 1 2 3 4
Preschool HAI
25
Relationship of Preschool HAI and Year One Mother
Reported Externalizing Outcomes
F (1, 894) 18.34, p lt .001
Externalizing
0 1 2 3 4
0 1 2 3 4
Preschool HAI
26
Relationship of Preschool HAI and Year One Mother
Reported Internalizing Outcomes
F (1, 894) .69, n.s.
Internalizing
0 1 2 3 4
0 1 2 3 4
Preschool HAI
27
Relationship of Preschool HAI and Year One
Teacher Reported Internalizing Outcomes
F (1, 894) 8.95, p lt .01
High Low

Internalizing
0 1 2 3 4
Preschool HAI
28
Conclusions Early attributions of intention
  • Some hostile attributions of intent common
    response at both preschool and school age
  • Pollyanna Preschool bias toward benign
    interpretations of social misfortune
  • Pollyanna Preschoolers show fewer hostile
    attributions and fewer externalizing behaviours
    in early childhood mixed results re.
    internalizing

29
Understanding Pollyanna Preschoolers
  • High IQ?
  • Emotional IQ?
  • Precocious Empathy?
  • Sheltered?
  • Naïve?
  • Future victims?
  • Optimist Bias?
  • Rose-coloured glasses?

30
Thank You
Dan Keating Jenny Jenkins Katreena Scott Daniel
Shaw Michel Ferrari Keith Stanovich Janet
Astington
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