Journal of Experimental Child Psychology最新文献_第5页

Children’s math and science beliefs about underrepresented peers are related to STEM occupation expectations 儿童对未被充分代表的同龄人的数学和科学信念与STEM职业期望有关

IF 2 2区心理学 Q3 PSYCHOLOGY, DEVELOPMENTAL

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

Pub Date : 2025-10-23 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106388

Melanie Killen , Elise M. Kaufman , Kate V. Luken Raz

Children’s interest and motivation in math and science decline dramatically beginning as early as elementary school (K-5). This is especially true for marginalized students, such as girls and children from underrepresented racial-ethnic minority (URM) backgrounds. Understanding the relation between children’s STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) competence beliefs and STEM occupation expectations provides a basis for timely and targeted intervention. This association is crucial because expectations about who will pursue and engage in STEM occupations reveals potential biases that might translate into exclusion of participation from STEM-related activities in childhood. To examine this topic, a survey was administered to N = 842 children ages 7–12 years from different racial-ethnic backgrounds in the suburbs of a large Mid-Atlantic city. As hypothesized, we found that math and science competence beliefs about girls predicted children’s expectation that a girl, rather than a boy, would grow up to be a scientist and a doctor. Further, math and science competency beliefs about URM peers predicted children’s expectation that a Black or Latine child would grow up to be a doctor, though these beliefs were not related to their expectations that a Black or Latine child would grow up to be a scientist. Additionally, participants were more likely to expect a girl to grow up to be a doctor than to be a scientist. The effects of participant age, gender, and race were also investigated. These findings contribute to understanding how best to broaden participation in math and science fields for all children.

孩子们对数学和科学的兴趣和动力早在小学（K-5）就开始急剧下降。对于被边缘化的学生来说尤其如此，例如女孩和来自代表性不足的少数民族背景的儿童。了解儿童STEM（科学、技术、工程和数学）能力信念与STEM职业期望之间的关系，为及时和有针对性的干预提供了基础。这种关联是至关重要的，因为对谁将从事和从事STEM职业的预期揭示了潜在的偏见，这些偏见可能会导致儿童时期被排除在STEM相关活动之外。为了研究这个话题，我们对来自大西洋中部一个大城市郊区不同种族背景的N = 842名7-12岁的儿童进行了一项调查。正如假设的那样，我们发现，关于女孩的数学和科学能力的信念，预示着孩子们对女孩而不是男孩长大后会成为科学家和医生的期望。此外，URM同龄人的数学和科学能力信念预测了孩子们对黑人或拉丁裔孩子长大后会成为医生的期望，尽管这些信念与他们对黑人或拉丁裔孩子长大后会成为科学家的期望无关。此外，参与者更希望女孩长大后成为一名医生，而不是一名科学家。研究还调查了参与者年龄、性别和种族的影响。这些发现有助于理解如何最好地扩大所有儿童在数学和科学领域的参与。

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引用次数: 0

Young children enforce self-created norms promiscuously 年幼的孩子胡乱地执行自己制定的规范。

IF 2 2区心理学 Q3 PSYCHOLOGY, DEVELOPMENTAL

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

Pub Date : 2025-10-21 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106396

Wouter Wolf , Vivian Iva , Isabella Larsen , Michael Tomasello

Three-year-old children normatively protest the transgression of adult rules in a variety of contexts. Five-year-olds also normatively protest the transgression of rules they have themselves created collaboratively with peers. But do children of these ages protest rules that they have created for themselves as individuals? We prompted five-year-olds (Study 1: 128 participants, 69 females) and three-year-olds (Study 2: 64 participants, 32 females) to devise a way to play with a toy in the presence of some puppet peers, after which a new puppet engaged with the toy the ‘wrong’ way. Results showed that five-year-olds protested at similar rates regardless of whether they came up with a way to play collaboratively with others and then played together (collaborative condition), came up with a way to play individually but then played together (two trendsetter conditions), or came up with a way to play and played totally individually (solo condition). In Study 2, three-year-olds protested self-created rules as well, albeit at lower rates than five-year-olds. Finally, neither age group’s protest seemed to be influenced by instructions containing explicit cues of normativity or conventionality (e.g., creating a game with rules vs coming up with a way to play). As such, when children create norms themselves, their willingness to protest novice transgressors seems not to be impacted by the degree to which these norms were created through collaboration. Moreover, our results show that promiscuous normativity of self-created norms emerges earlier than previously thought, around the same time children become promiscuous normativists towards adult-created norms.

三岁的孩子会在各种情况下对违反成人规则的行为进行规范性抗议。五岁的孩子也会以规范的方式抗议他们自己与同龄人合作制定的规则的违反。但是，这些年龄段的孩子会抗议他们作为个体为自己制定的规则吗？我们让五岁的孩子（研究1:128名参与者，69名女性）和三岁的孩子（研究2:64名参与者，32名女性）设计一种在一些木偶同伴在场的情况下玩玩具的方法，之后一个新的木偶以“错误”的方式玩玩具。结果显示，无论他们是想出了一种与他人合作玩游戏的方法，然后一起玩（合作条件），想出了一种单独玩游戏的方法，然后一起玩（两种趋势引领者条件），还是想出了一种完全单独玩游戏的方法（单独条件），五岁的孩子都有类似的抗议率。在研究2中，三岁的孩子也会抗议自己制定的规则，尽管比例低于五岁的孩子。最后，这两个年龄组的抗议似乎都没有受到包含规范性或常规性明确线索的指示的影响（例如，创造一款带有规则的游戏vs想出一种游戏方式）。因此，当孩子们自己创造规范时，他们抗议初犯的意愿似乎不受这些规范是通过合作创造的程度的影响。此外，我们的研究结果表明，自我创造规范的混杂规范出现的时间比之前认为的要早，大约在同一时间，儿童成为成人创造规范的混杂规范主义者。

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引用次数: 0

Children’s reasoning strategies on call and Tomasello’s nonverbal false belief test: no sign of false-belief reasoning 儿童随叫随到的推理策略和托马塞洛的非语言错误信念测试：没有错误信念推理的迹象。

IF 2 2区心理学 Q3 PSYCHOLOGY, DEVELOPMENTAL

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

Pub Date : 2025-10-21 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106397

Michael Huemer , Lara M. Schröder , Sarah J. Leikard , Josef Perner

The present study systematically investigated how 83 (42 female, Austrian, 41 to 79 months) children reasoned on Call and Tomasello’s (1999) nonverbal false belief task. Experiment 1 replicated the central finding that children realized that a mistaken communicator tended to mark the wrong, unbaited box. However, we found that less than half of the children gave consistently correct responses while others responded in a way indistinguishable from random guessing. Some children noted that markings were consistently wrong, suggesting a simple response strategy of choosing the unmarked box without reasoning about the communicator’s false belief. Experiment 2 undermined this potential strategy by adding correctly marked trials. Performance dropped so that it could not be distinguished anymore from random responding. These results call into question whether Call and Tomasello’s task detects reasoning about false beliefs.

本研究系统地调查了83名儿童（42名奥地利女性，41至79个月）如何对Call和Tomasello（1999）的非语言错误信念任务进行推理。实验1重复了最重要的发现，即孩子们意识到，一个错误的交流者往往会在错误的、没有诱饵的盒子上做标记。然而，我们发现只有不到一半的孩子给出了始终正确的答案，而其他孩子的回答与随机猜测没有什么区别。一些孩子注意到标记总是错的，他们提出了一个简单的回应策略，即选择没有标记的盒子，而不去推理传播者的错误信念。实验2通过添加正确标记的试验破坏了这一潜在策略。性能下降，因此无法再与随机响应区分。这些结果让人质疑call和Tomasello的任务是否能检测出错误信念的推理。

引用次数: 0

Parental anhedonic versus non-anhedonic depressive symptoms and children’s reward processing 父母快感缺乏性与非快感缺乏性抑郁症状与儿童奖励加工

IF 2 2区心理学 Q3 PSYCHOLOGY, DEVELOPMENTAL

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

Pub Date : 2025-10-18 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106398

Elana S. Israel, Brandon E. Gibb

There is preliminary evidence that children of parents with depression exhibit alterations in reward processing that may increase children’s risk for developing psychopathology. However, depression is a heterogeneous disorder, and it is unclear whether specific symptoms of parental depression may be particularly associated with increased risk in children. The current study examined links between parents’ anhedonic versus non-anhedonic symptoms of depression and neural indices of reward outcome processing in children. Participants in this study were a community sample of 217 parent–child dyads (children ages 7–11; 53.00% male, 65.90% non-Hispanic White). Children’s reward outcome processing was assessed during a simple guessing task with the reward positivity (RewP) event-related potential (ERP), which indexes initial neural responsiveness to positive and negative outcome feedback (e.g., winning or losing money). Higher levels of parental anhedonic, but not non-anhedonic, depressive symptoms were associated with more blunted reactivity to both positive and negative outcome feedback in children. The finding was maintained when statistically controlling for children’s own levels of depression and positive affect. These results suggest that parental anhedonia may be a core feature of depression uniquely related to alterations in children’s reward processing, which may have important implications for interventions designed to reduce risk in youth.

有初步证据表明，父母患有抑郁症的孩子在奖励处理方面表现出改变，这可能会增加孩子患精神病理的风险。然而，抑郁症是一种异质性疾病，目前尚不清楚父母抑郁的特定症状是否与儿童的风险增加特别相关。目前的研究调查了父母的快乐缺乏症和非快乐缺乏症症状与儿童奖励结果处理的神经指数之间的联系。本研究的参与者是217对亲子二联体的社区样本（7-11岁儿童，53.00%为男性，65.90%为非西班牙裔白人）。在一个简单的猜测任务中，用奖励正性（RewP）事件相关电位（ERP）来评估儿童的奖励结果加工，奖励正性（RewP）事件相关电位是指对积极和消极结果反馈（如赢钱或输钱）的初始神经反应。较高水平的父母缺乏快乐而非缺乏快乐的抑郁症状与儿童对积极和消极结果反馈的反应更迟钝相关。在统计上控制了儿童自身的抑郁和积极情绪水平后，这一发现得到了证实。这些结果表明，父母快感缺乏可能是抑郁症的一个核心特征，与儿童奖励处理的改变独特相关，这可能对旨在降低青少年风险的干预措施具有重要意义。

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引用次数: 0

If she watches, I will share: The impact of private and public self-focus on children’s sharing behavior and the moral self-concept 如果她看，我就分享：私人和公共自我对儿童分享行为和道德自我概念的影响

IF 2 2区心理学 Q3 PSYCHOLOGY, DEVELOPMENTAL

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

Pub Date : 2025-10-18 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106399

Natalie Christner , Regina M. Sticker , Antonia Misch , Tobias Krettenauer , Markus Paulus

States with a focus on oneself, such as observing oneself (private self-focus) and being observed by others (public self-focus), are proposed to increase the saliency of own motives and evaluations by others and thereby to influence behavior. These processes become particularly relevant toward the end of early childhood, around the same age when children’s moral self-concept (their view of themselves as prosocial agents) consolidates. This study advances the understanding of the role of self-focus on children’s prosocial behavior by considering their moral self-concept. We investigated how private self-focus and two facets of public self-focus affect sharing behavior, the moral self-concept, and their interrelation. In a preregistered study, we assessed 5- to 8-year-olds’ (N = 161, 84 female) sharing behavior and moral self-concept across four conditions. Children shared while observing themselves (private self-focus), while being observed by another child (reputation), while being observed by another child who could reciprocate later (reciprocity), or while not being observed (control). Generally, children shared more when observed by another person compared to when they were not in the focus of anybody, whereas observing themselves did not increase sharing. Children’s moral self-concept was positively correlated with sharing, particularly when being in public self-focus, while mean values did not differ between conditions. The study provides novel evidence for the specific role of the awareness of others’ evaluation in children’s prosocial behavior. It suggests a social grounding of the moral self-concept by revealing its particular role for sharing behavior when being in the focus of social attention.

提出以自我为中心的状态，如观察自己（私人自我关注）和被他人观察（公共自我关注），以增加自己的动机和他人评价的显著性，从而影响行为。这些过程在儿童早期末期变得尤为重要，大约在儿童的道德自我概念（他们认为自己是亲社会行为者）巩固的同一年龄。本研究通过考虑儿童的道德自我概念，促进了对自我关注在儿童亲社会行为中的作用的理解。我们研究了私人自我关注和公共自我关注的两个方面对分享行为、道德自我概念的影响及其相互关系。在一项预先登记的研究中，我们评估了5- 8岁儿童（N = 161,84名女性）在四种情况下的分享行为和道德自我概念。孩子们在观察自己（私人自我关注）、被另一个孩子观察（声誉）、被另一个孩子观察（互惠）或不被观察（控制）时分享。一般来说，当孩子们被别人观察时，他们分享的比他们没有被任何人关注时更多，而观察自己并没有增加分享。儿童的道德自我概念与分享呈正相关，特别是在公共场合自我关注时，而平均值在不同条件下没有差异。本研究为他人评价意识在儿童亲社会行为中的具体作用提供了新的证据。通过揭示道德自我概念在成为社会关注焦点时对分享行为的特殊作用，表明道德自我概念的社会基础。

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引用次数: 0

“Watch me − This is how it should be done!” The effect of normative language on preschoolers’ overimitation occurs only in the lab but not at home “看着我——这才是应该做的！”规范语言对学龄前儿童过度模仿的影响只发生在实验室，而不发生在家庭。

IF 2 2区心理学 Q3 PSYCHOLOGY, DEVELOPMENTAL

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

Pub Date : 2025-10-17 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106389

Jule Bach, Sabina Pauen

Preschoolers often imitate actions that are causally irrelevant, a phenomenon called “overimitation (OI)”. The present study examines how task context and language framing influence OI. A total of 160 four- to five-year-old German children from predominantly middle- to high-socioeconomic backgrounds participated in the study. All children performed the same OI task under four different conditions. They observed an adult model who demonstrated functional and non-functional actions before they themselves were allowed to retrieve a cookie from a transparent jar which could easily be opened by unscrewing the lid. This task was conducted either in a laboratory setting with an unfamiliar experimenter as model or at each child’s home with their caregiver as model. In both contexts, either a normative or a non-normative verbal instruction was used, resulting in a 2 × 2 between-subjects design. OI scores were not significantly affected by framing or context alone. However, a significant interaction was found between the two factors: a normative language led to more OI in the lab-context, but did not affect OI-scores in the home context. Implications of these findings for children’s sensitivity to context conditions and language framing in observational learning are discussed.

学龄前儿童经常模仿与因果关系无关的行为，这种现象被称为“过度模仿（OI）”。本研究探讨任务语境和语言框架如何影响成骨不全。共有160名4到5岁的德国儿童参加了这项研究，他们主要来自中高社会经济背景。所有儿童在四种不同的条件下执行相同的成骨不全症任务。他们观察了一个成年模特，在他们自己被允许从一个透明的罐子里取出饼干之前，他们展示了功能性和非功能性的行为，这个罐子可以很容易地通过拧开盖子打开。这项任务要么在实验室环境中进行，由一个不熟悉的实验者作为模型，要么在每个孩子的家中进行，由他们的照顾者作为模型。在这两种情况下，使用规范性或非规范性言语指令，导致受试者之间的2 × 2设计。单纯的框架或情境对成骨不全评分没有显著影响。然而，在这两个因素之间发现了显著的相互作用：在实验室环境中，规范的语言导致更多的OI，但在家庭环境中不影响OI得分。这些发现对儿童在观察学习中对语境条件和语言框架的敏感性的影响进行了讨论。

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引用次数: 0

Detecting social cues conveyed by laughter and associations with callous-unemotional traits in early childhood 幼儿时期通过笑声传达的社会线索和与冷酷无情特征的联系。

IF 2 2区心理学 Q3 PSYCHOLOGY, DEVELOPMENTAL

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

Pub Date : 2025-10-16 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106395

R.C. Plate , M. Flum , Y. Paz , E.R. Perkins , Y. Rodriguez , J. Herrington , J. Parish-Morris , R. Waller

Beginning in infancy, laughter promotes positive social interactions. However, laughter can also convey derision. Adults distinguish friendly from derisory laughter, appropriately modulating social behavior based on their perceptions of the laugher’s intent. Given the connection between laughter perception and broader social functioning, it is important to understand how this skill develops in young children who are initiating foundational early social bonds. Moreover, children who have difficulties forming and maintaining social bonds—including those with callous-unemotional (CU) traits—may show differences in correctly identifying and responding to laughter. Here, 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children (N = 150; 50% female) categorized laughter clips that varied in conveying affiliation (i.e., friendly) or dominance (i.e., mean) and reported on whether they wanted to play with the person producing the laughter. Children distinguished between laughter types, were accurate at detecting mean laughter, and showed increasing accuracy across ages 3 to 5 years. Children expressed a preference to play with friendly versus mean laughers, a distinction that sharpened from ages 3 to 5 years. Higher CU traits predicted lower accuracy for identifying mean laughs, with no CU-related difference for friendly laughs, though CU traits were not related to social preference. The findings provide the first evidence of young children’s ability to detect and appropriately adjust their behavioral intentions based on different communicative signals conveyed in laughter. Findings also suggest that these abilities may be relevant to young children who have difficulties with interpersonal interactions and social bonding.

从婴儿期开始，笑声促进积极的社会互动。然而，笑声也可以表达嘲笑。成年人区分友好的笑声和嘲弄的笑声，根据他们对笑声意图的感知，适当地调节社会行为。考虑到笑声感知与更广泛的社会功能之间的联系，了解这种技能在幼儿中如何发展是很重要的，因为幼儿正在建立早期的社会联系。此外，那些难以形成和维持社会关系的孩子——包括那些冷酷无情（CU）的孩子——在正确识别和回应笑声方面可能会表现出差异。在这里，3岁、4岁和5岁的孩子（N = 150，其中50%是女性）对笑声片段进行了分类，这些笑声片段在表达亲切感（即友好）或支配感（即刻薄）方面各不相同，并报告了他们是否想和发出笑声的人一起玩。孩子们能分辨出不同的笑声类型，能准确地识别出一般的笑声，并且在3到5岁的年龄段中准确率越来越高。孩子们更喜欢友好的笑，而不是刻薄的笑，这种区别在3岁到5岁之间变得更加明显。较高的CU特征预示着识别恶意笑的准确性较低，而对于友好的笑则没有CU相关的差异，尽管CU特征与社会偏好无关。这一发现首次证明，幼儿有能力根据笑声中传达的不同交流信号，发现并适当调整自己的行为意图。研究结果还表明，这些能力可能与那些在人际交往和社会联系方面有困难的幼儿有关。

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引用次数: 0

Distinct ordinal representations mediate the influence of cardinal knowledge on Preschoolers’ arithmetic performance 不同序数表征中介了基数知识对学龄前儿童算术成绩的影响。

IF 2 2区心理学 Q3 PSYCHOLOGY, DEVELOPMENTAL

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

Pub Date : 2025-10-16 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106392

Ricardo Moura

Ordinal knowledge plays a foundational role in early mathematics, yet little is known about how different forms of ordinal representation support preschoolers’ arithmetic. The present study investigated whether two types of count-list-based ordinal representations—rote counting and number ordering—mediate the relationship between symbolic cardinal knowledge and arithmetic performance in preschool children. Sixty-four preschool children (mean age = 67.3 months) completed a battery of tasks assessing cardinality, rote counting, number ordering, and arithmetic. Mediation analyses revealed that both rote counting and number ordering fully mediated the relationship between symbolic number comparison and arithmetic performance. Importantly, analyses showed that these mediators differentially supported arithmetic depending on problem complexity: rote counting was more strongly associated with simpler addition problems, while flexible number ordering predicted performance on more complex addition problems typically solved with overt counting strategies. These findings highlight the heterogeneous nature of ordinal representations and underscore their role as early supports for arithmetic, even before elementary school. Implications for understanding early ordinal representations and its use on education practices are discussed.

序数知识在早期数学中起着基础作用，然而，关于不同形式的序数表示如何支持学龄前儿童的算术，人们知之甚少。摘要本研究探讨了两种基于计数表的有序表示——死记硬背计数和数字排序——是否介导了学龄前儿童符号基数知识与算术表现之间的关系。64名学龄前儿童（平均年龄= 67.3个月）完成了一系列评估基数、死记硬背、数字排序和算术的任务。中介分析表明，记数和数字排序在符号数比较和算术性能之间的关系中起完全中介作用。重要的是，分析表明，根据问题的复杂性，这些中介对算术的支持是不同的：死记硬背的计数与更简单的加法问题有更强的联系，而灵活的数字排序预测了通常用公开计数策略解决的更复杂的加法问题的性能。这些发现突出了序数表示的异质性，并强调了序数表示作为算术早期支持的作用，甚至在小学之前。讨论了理解早期序数表示及其在教育实践中的应用的含义。

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引用次数: 0

Early development of spatial-numerical associations: consistency and variability of the SNARC effect in kindergarten children 空间-数字关联的早期发展：幼儿园儿童SNARC效应的一致性和变异性。

IF 2 2区心理学 Q3 PSYCHOLOGY, DEVELOPMENTAL

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

Pub Date : 2025-10-15 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106393

Tânia Ramos, Carrie Georges, Christine Schiltz

Numbers and space are associated in the human brain. One of the most-studied spatial-numerical associations (SNAs) is the SNARC effect (Spatial Numerical Association of Response Codes), for which robust group-level effects are reported across adult studies. Despite well-replicated group-level effects, recent individual-level analysis in adults indicate that only a minority of individuals consistently map numbers onto space (Cipora et al., 2019). To date, SNARC studies in children remain generally scarce with inconclusive results. And none have explored the consistency of individual effects at earlier developmental stages. In the present study, we therefore tested 135 kindergarten children performing magnitude judgments to assess not only group-level SNARC effects but also the prevalence of individual consistency using the same methodology recently applied in adults (Cipora et al., 2019). Our findings reveal a significant magnitude SNARC effect at the group-level. However, similarly to adults, only 37% of the children consistently associated numbers with space in a left-to-right direction when considering CIs around observed effects. While these findings suggest that SNAs on average emerge earlier in life, they also point towards considerable heterogeneity across individuals in that respect. How this can help us understand the conflicting results in the literature regarding significant group-level SNARC effects in children, and guide future research on the potential relation between individual SNARC effects and educational measures in math will be discussed.

在人脑中，数字和空间是联系在一起的。研究最多的空间-数值关联（SNAs）之一是SNARC效应（反应代码的空间数值关联），在成人研究中报道了强大的群体水平效应。尽管群体层面的效应得到了很好的复制，但最近对成年人的个人层面分析表明，只有少数人会持续地将数字映射到空间上（Cipora et al., 2019）。到目前为止，儿童SNARC的研究仍然很少，结果也不确定。也没有人研究过早期发育阶段个体影响的一致性。因此，在本研究中，我们测试了135名幼儿园儿童进行大小判断，不仅评估群体层面的SNARC效应，还使用最近应用于成人的相同方法评估个体一致性的普遍性（Cipora et al., 2019）。我们的研究结果揭示了群体层面上显著的SNARC效应。然而，与成人相似，只有37%的儿童在考虑到观察到的影响时始终将数字与左至右方向的空间联系起来。虽然这些发现表明，sna平均出现在生命早期，但它们也指出，在这方面，个体之间存在相当大的异质性。这将如何帮助我们理解文献中关于儿童显著群体水平SNARC效应的相互矛盾的结果，并指导未来关于个体SNARC效应与数学教育措施之间潜在关系的研究。

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引用次数: 0

Pretend play of scientists boosts young children’s, especially girls’, persistence in science 科学家的假装游戏可以增强幼儿，尤其是女孩对科学的坚持。

IF 2 2区心理学 Q3 PSYCHOLOGY, DEVELOPMENTAL

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

Pub Date : 2025-10-13 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106368

Yu Shan Huang, Tatiana Fugelso Rachlin, Lin Bian

Gender gaps in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) emerge as early as elementary school, highlighting the need for early interventions. Recent work suggests that a pretend play intervention, in which girls roleplayed as a hardworking scientist increased their persistence in a novel science activity. However, instead of highlighting scientists’ hard work, the pervasive cultural narrative portrays scientists as brilliant, a trait that girls associate less with their own gender than boys. The present study investigates whether pretending to be a brilliant scientist can also boost girls’ persistence. Experiment 1 tested a large and diverse sample of four- to seven-year-olds (N = 325, 164 girls, 55% White). Children played a science game in one of three conditions: as themselves (no-roleplay condition), as a hardworking scientist (dedication condition), or as a brilliant scientist (brilliance condition). Results showed that children in both the dedication and brilliance conditions persisted longer in the science activity than those in the no-roleplay condition. This effect was mainly driven by girls. Thus, pretend play of science role models enhances children’s science engagement, regardless of the role models’ characteristics. Experiment 2 (N = 160, 82 girls, 50% White) revealed that roleplaying as an artist did not yield the same effect, suggesting that pretending to be scientists, not pretend play in general, increased children’s persistence in science activities. These findings have broad implications for ways to mitigate the gender gap in science. We discuss possible mechanisms driving the role of pretend play in boosting children’s science engagement.

科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）领域的性别差距早在小学就出现了，这凸显了早期干预的必要性。最近的研究表明，在一个假装游戏干预中，女孩扮演一个努力工作的科学家，增加了她们对一项新的科学活动的坚持。然而，普遍的文化叙事没有强调科学家的辛勤工作，而是将科学家描绘成才华横溢的人，这是女孩比男孩更少将其与自己的性别联系在一起的特征。目前的研究调查了假装是一个杰出的科学家是否也能提高女孩的毅力。实验1测试了大量不同的4 - 7岁儿童样本（N = 325, 164名女孩，55%是白人）。孩子们在三种情况下玩科学游戏：作为自己（无角色扮演条件），作为一个努力工作的科学家（奉献条件），或者作为一个杰出的科学家（杰出条件）。结果表明，奉献和才华条件下的儿童在科学活动中的坚持时间比无角色扮演条件下的儿童长。这种影响主要是由女孩推动的。因此，不管角色模型的特点如何，假装扮演的科学角色模型增强了儿童的科学参与。实验2 （N = 160, 82名女孩，50%是白人）显示，扮演艺术家并没有产生同样的效果，这表明扮演科学家，而不是一般的假装游戏，增加了孩子们对科学活动的坚持。这些发现对于缓解科学领域的性别差距具有广泛的意义。我们讨论了推动假装游戏在促进儿童科学参与中的作用的可能机制。

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引用次数: 0