This article explores the functional significance of affective messages for behavior in early childhood. Previous research indicates that children's affective judgments are influenced more by what is said than by how it is said. Of particular interest is the extent to which this tendency toward literal interpretation has real consequences for behavior. The effect of consistent and conflicting affective messages on child behavior was assessed in a social-referencing procedure. What was said had a stronger effect than facial and vocal paralanguage on children's exploration of novel objects. This suggests that the lexical bias evident in children's interpretations reflects a genuine developmental transition in the primary cues on which attributions are based, and these cues have direct consequences for behavior regulation.

中文翻译：

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我应该怎么办？儿童早期语言和副语言的行为调节

本文探讨了情感信息对幼儿行为的功能意义。先前的研究表明，儿童的情感判断更多地受所说内容的影响，而不是受如何表达的影响。特别令人感兴趣的是这种逐字解释的倾向对行为产生的实际影响的程度。在社会参考程序中评估了一致和冲突的情感信息对儿童行为的影响。与面部和声音副语言相比，所说的话对儿童探索新事物的影响更大。这表明儿童解释中明显的词汇偏见反映了归因所依据的主要线索的真正发展转变，而这些线索对行为调节具有直接影响。