Developmental Psychology
Vol. 46, Issue 5, Pages 1078-1088
September 2010
Abstract
Recent
research has suggested that young children have relatively
well-developed trait concepts. However, this literature overlooks
potential age-related differences in children's appreciation of the
fundamentally dimensional nature of traits. In Study I, we presented
4-, 5-, and 7-year-old children and adults with sets of characters and
asked them to indicate the preferences of a target character who shared
appearance attributes with one character (appearance match) and shared
a common trait with the other character (trait match). Traits were
presented in a way that emphasized either their categorical or their
dimensional nature. When the dimensional nature of trait terms was
emphasized, the youngest children made fewer trait-based inferences,
and the use of traits increased with age. In Study 2, we gave
4-year-old children and adults the same task except that the extent to
which appearance cues could serve as a meaningful basis of judgment was
varied. Results were consistent with the findings of Study I, although
children were more likely to rely on dimensional presentations of
traits in the absence of strong appearance cues.
Citation
Gonzalez, Celia M., Kristina M. Zosuls, and Diane N. Ruble. "Traits as Dimensions or Categories? Developmental Change in the Understanding of Trait Terms." Developmental Psychology 46.5 (September 2010): 1078-1088.