共情与心理理论在中班幼儿攻击行为中的作用——基于对北京市幼儿观察与测量的实证研究

The Roles of Empathy and Psychological Theory in Middle Class Children's Aggressive Behavior:Based on the Empirical Study of Observation and Measurement of Children in Beijing

中班幼儿的攻击行为已经分化为身体攻击、言语攻击、关系攻击等不同类型。攻击行为会受到情感因素(共情)和认知因素(心理理论)的作用。现有研究尚不清楚,在4-5岁这个幼儿社会性发展的关键时期,共情和心理理论如何影响不同类型的攻击行为。本研究以114名4-5岁的中班幼儿(男孩和女孩各57名)为被试,使用经典的意外内容和意外地点任务测量被试的心理理论,由教师基于共情问卷(EmQue)对幼儿进行两周的观察和评定,考察幼儿的共情和不同类型的攻击行为。研究结果发现幼儿不同类型的攻击行为和共情的不同维度以及心理理论有着复杂的关系:(1)共情不同维度对男孩和女孩的攻击行为具有不同影响,并受到性别因素的调节。(2)女孩的心理理论与其言语攻击和关系攻击呈负相关;男孩的心理理论和共情中的情绪感染具有交互作用,仅对于心理理论较低的男孩,其情绪感染才正向预测其关系攻击。该研究表明社会认知因素和社会情感因素对于4-5岁幼儿的攻击行为有着复杂的影响,这种影响还会受到性别的调节。

Previous research indicated that aggressive behaviors,which includes physical,verbal,relational aggression,are influenced by both emotional factors(empathy)and cognitive factors(Theory of Mind,short for ToM).However,it is unclear what is the roles of empathy and ToM on aggressive behavior in children of 4-5 years old.4-5 years old is also the time of children's middle grade in preschool education.The age of 4-5 years is the critical period of Chinese children's social development.The present study aimed to examine how empathy and ToM related with different type of aggressive behaviors.The present sample consisted of 114 middle-class children(57 boys).The Unexpected Location and Unexpected Context Tasks were used to measure the participants ToM,the teacher-report Empathy Questionnaire and Children Aggressive Questionnaire were used to reflect children's empathy and three types of aggressive behaviors,based on the teachers observation for two weeks.The results show that in young children,there are complex relationships between aggression and empathy and ToM.First,dimensions of empathy predicted different types of aggression differently,and these predictions were moderate by children gender.Second,while the girls ToM negatively related with both verbal and relational attacks;the boys ToM and emotional contagion have an interactive on children's aggression:only for boys with lower ToM,their emotional contagion positively predicted their relational aggression.The study shows that social cognitive and social affective factors have complex effects on aggression of children aged 4-5 years,which also bring practical inspiration to social education in preschools.