Who are Pollyanna Preschoolers Developing a benign attribution bias

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Who are Pollyanna Preschoolers? Developing a
benign attribution bias

• Dr Kevin Runions
• School Of Psychology
• Edith Cowan University
• k.runions_at_ecu.edu.au

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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?

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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

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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?
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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

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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

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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

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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.)

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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).

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Distribution of Preschool HAI (n 896)
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Distribution of Preschool HAI by Gender
N
?2 8.3, p lt .10
Total Hostile Attributions of Intent
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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
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Preschool HAI Bivariate Relation with Maternal
Education
t (894) 3.96, p lt .001
0 1 2 3 4
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Pollyanna Preschoolers?
Hold on! Those arent preschoolers!
Children who report only benign intentions or
accidental causes, even if actions harmful to the
child
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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)

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

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

0 1 2 3 4
Preschool HAI
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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

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Understanding Pollyanna Preschoolers

• High IQ?
• Emotional IQ?
• Precocious Empathy?

• Sheltered?
• Naïve?
• Future victims?

• Optimist Bias?
• Rose-coloured glasses?

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