The roles of behavioral and affective cues and false belief in children's trait attributions

Children as young as 3 years can make trait attributions based on behavioral and emotional cues, but such skills continue to develop across childhood. ​Theory of mind understanding, the ability to attribute mental states to oneself and others, may provide a foundation for early development of trait attributions. The purpose of the current study was to explore the impact of behavioral and affective cues on children's trait attributions, if their attributes changed incrementally across five repeated instances of an observed behavior, and to what extent such patterns of attributions are related to false belief, a key concept of theory of mind. A total of 115 3- to 5-year-olds completed theory of mind tasks and two trait attribution tasks with affect and the nature of behavior (helpful/unhelpful) varied. Use of a quantitative histogram enabled identification of subtle changes in attributions across episodes. Results indicated that preschool-aged children rated characters as less likable with repeated instances of unhelpful behavior, with meaningful changes occurring after a second case of behavior. The 5-year-olds were more sensitive to differences in helpfulness than the other two age groups. In addition, the 4-year-olds rated smiling helpful characters more positively across time, suggesting a potential impact of emotional cues. Moreover, false belief was related to, yet did not account for, children's attributions. Factors affecting young children's formation of trait attributions are discussed.