身体清洁对低龄幼儿选择扩散效应的消除

Physical Cleanness Eliminates Children's Spreading-alternatives-effect

研究以105名4岁幼儿为被试,采用选择扩散范式的盲选-双选法考察身体清洁能否消除低龄幼儿的选择扩散效应。通过操纵自变量(洗手vs.不洗手),观察幼儿是否出现选择扩散。结果发现,不洗手组的被试出现明显的选择扩散效应,洗手组则没有。说明4岁幼儿已经表现出选择扩散效应,且能通过身体清洁得以消除。除了自我心理学和行为倾向的解释之外,研究结果说明,具身认知可能也是影响选择扩散效应的心理机制。

The Spreading-alternatives-effect is a form of attitude , hange caused by post-decision dissonance. After choosing between two equally attractive alternatives, people tend to evaluate the chosen alternative more positively or devaluate the rejected alternative. It can be observed in both adults and children. Recent studies found that the spreading-alternatives-effict was eliminated by hand-washing in adults. The purpose uf this study was to explore whether physical clean behavior such as hand-washing could eliminate children＇ s post decision dissonance as it did in adults. A total of＇ 1104-year-old kindergarten children participated in this experiment. Five of them refused to cooperate and 105 of them finished the experiment as designed （M = 53.4month, SD = 2.98, 49boys）. In blind-two-fhoice tasks preferences would not guide choices and such tasks are applicable to children, too. 3 brightly cohn＇ed plastic toys were used as the stimuli. The toys were the same except for their colors, which were mainly red, blue and orange. Each of the three toys were put in three stockings to hide their main identities ; two of the the stockings were the same colore and the remaining one was different. Children firstly chose between two toys in the same colored stocking, while the color of the toys cannot be seen, and secondly chose between the rejected alternative and the third one. To manipulate the independent variables （hand-washing vs. no hand-washing） , the participants in the experiment group took a sanitizing wipe of their hands after the first choice, and the participants in the control group didn＇ t. A ehi-square test showed a significant difference across the two conditions （χ2 （ 1, n = 105 ） =4. 247, p = . 031 ）. In the no hand-wash- ing condition, a chi-square test showed that children reliably preterred toys in the third stocking （36 of the 53 children, 67.9% , χ2 （ 1 , n =53） =6. 811, p = . 009）. It means that there is a significant spreading-alternatives-effect in the no hand-washing condition. As compared, in the hand-washing condition, the participants showed no preference between the rejected alternative and a third object in the second choice （25 of the 52 children, 48.1%, χ2（ 1, n =52） =. 077, p =. 728）. It indicates that there is no choice induced preference or spreading-alternatives-effect in the hand-washing condition. The results, for the first time, provide the evidence that physical clean behavior such as hand-washing can eliminate children＇ s post-decision dissonance. This study suggests that embodied psychological phenomena do not merely exist in adults, but also in children. The mechanism of the spreading-alternatives-effect could be ex- plained under the the framework of embodied cognition. Furthernmre, adults may be affected by metaphors such as ＂wash away your trouble＂, as the concept metaphor themT stands, but the participants in this study are preschoolers. Do they understand this kind of metaphor？ If not, does it mean that this sort of embodiment effect lies beyond and before metaphors？ These are still questions that need to be explored in tutnre studies.