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The Effect of Psychological Distance on Children's Reasoning about Future Preferences.

ABSTRACT: Young preschool-aged children often have difficulty thinking about the future, but tend to reason better about another person's future than their own. This benefit may reflect psychological distance from one's own emotions, beliefs, and states that may bias thinking. In adults, reasoning for others who are more socially distant (i.e., dissimilar, unfamiliar other) is associated with wiser and more adaptive reasoning. The current studies examined whether this effect of social distance could be demonstrated in young children's future thinking. In a future preferences task, 3- and 4-year-olds were shown 5 pairs of child and adult items and selected which ones they would prefer when grown-up. Children answered for themselves, a socially close peer, or a socially distant peer. Social distance was manipulated by varying similarity in Study 1 and familiarity in Study 2. In Study 1, reasoning for similar and dissimilar peers was significantly more accurate than reasoning for the self, but reasoning for similar and dissimilar peers did not differ. In Study 2, scores showed a step-wise increase from self, familiar peer, to unfamiliar peer, but only reasoning for an unfamiliar peer was significantly better more accurate than reasoning for the self. Reasoning for a familiar peer did not differ from reasoning for the self or for an unfamiliar peer. These results suggest that, like adults, children benefit from psychological distance when reasoning for others, but are less sensitive to degrees of social distance, showing no graded effects on performance in Study 1 and weak effects in Study 2. Stronger adult-like effects may only emerge with increasing age and development of other socio-cognitive skills.

SUBMITTER: Lee WS

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5065213 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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The Effect of Psychological Distance on Children's Reasoning about Future Preferences.

Lee Wendy S C WS Atance Cristina M CM

PloS one 20161014 10

Young preschool-aged children often have difficulty thinking about the future, but tend to reason better about another person's future than their own. This benefit may reflect psychological distance from one's own emotions, beliefs, and states that may bias thinking. In adults, reasoning for others who are more socially distant (i.e., dissimilar, unfamiliar other) is associated with wiser and more adaptive reasoning. The current studies examined whether this effect of social distance could be de ...[more]

PMID: 27741264

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Project description:BackgroundDue to a pattern known as Marginalization-related Diminished Returns (MDRs), historically oppressed non-Hispanic Black Americans show weaker effects of economic status on health and development, when compared to socially privileged non-Hispanic White Americans. Such MDRs are also documented for the effects of economic status on the school performance of non-Hispanic Black children. However, the existing knowledge is minimal on similar diminished returns on children's intelligence.AimTo compare racial and ethnic groups for the effect of subjective economic status on children's cognitive performance, we compared non-Hispanic White and non-Hispanic Black children for the effects of subjective economic status on children's matrix reasoning.MethodsThis cross-sectional study included 7898 children from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study. The predictor variable was subjective economic status, which was treated as a continuous measure. The primary outcome was children's matrix reasoning, a domain of cognitive performance, measured by the Wechsler Intelligence Scales for Children-IV (WISC-V) matrix reasoning total score.ResultsOverall, high subjective economic status was associated with higher matrix reasoning score. Race showed a statistically significant interaction with subjective economic status on children's matrix reasoning score. This interaction suggested that high subjective economic status has a smaller boosting effect on increasing matrix reasoning score for non-Hispanic Black children relative to non-Hispanic White children.ConclusionThe degree by which subjective economic status correlates with matrix reasoning score, an important domain of cognitive performance, depends on race and racialization. Non-Hispanic Black children may show weaker gains in matrix reasoning from their subjective economic status than their non-Hispanic White counterparts. To minimize the racial gap in cognitive performance, we need to address diminished returns that occur as a result of the racialization of racial and ethnic minority children. Not only should we equalize economic status, but also increase the marginal returns of economic status for racial minorities, particularly non-Hispanic Black families. Such efforts require public policies that go beyond access and also consider how we can empower non-Hispanic Black communities and families so they can more effectively leverage and utilize their economic resources to secure measurable and tangible outcomes. Structural and societal barriers such as residential and school segregation may hinder non-Hispanic Black children from receiving the full effects of their family-level economic status on a variety of outcomes, including their cognitive performance.

Project description:Medical advances in assisted reproductive technology have created new ways for transgender persons to become parents outside the context of adoption. The limited empirical data does not support the idea that trans-parenthood negatively impacts children's development. However, the question has led to lively societal debates making the need for evidence-based studies urgent. We aimed to compare cognitive development, mental health, gender identity, quality of life and family dynamics using standardized instruments and experimental protocols in 32 children who were conceived by donor sperm insemination (DSI) in French couples with a cisgender woman and a transgender man, the transition occurring before conception. We constituted two control groups matched for age, gender and family status. We found no significant difference between groups regarding cognitive development, mental health, and gender identity, meaning that neither the transgender fatherhood nor the use of DSI had any impact on these characteristics. The results of the descriptive analysis showed positive psycho-emotional development. Additionally, when we asked raters to differentiate the family drawings of the group of children of trans-fathers from those who were naturally conceived, no rater was able to differentiate the groups above chance levels, meaning that what children expressed through family drawing did not indicate cues related to trans-fatherhood. However, when we assessed mothers and fathers with the Five-Minute Speech Sample, we found that the emotions expressed by transgender fathers were higher than those of cisgender fathers who conceived by sex or by DSI. We conclude that the first empirical data regarding child development in the context of trans-parenthood are reassuring. We believe that this research will also improve transgender couple care and that of their children in a society where access to care remains difficult in this population. However, further research is needed with adolescents and young adults.

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The Effect of Psychological Distance on Children's Reasoning about Future Preferences.

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The Effect of Psychological Distance on Children's Reasoning about Future Preferences.

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