ABSTRACT Forming social evaluations of others is a core component of social cognition. In this study, the relationship between bilingual experience and social evaluations was investigated in 8-month-old infants. We compared monolingual and bilingual infants’ responses to third-party interactions where characters performed prosocial and antisocial actions toward a neutral actor. The same prosocial and antisocial characters were then rewarded by positive acts or punished by negative acts performed by “givers” and “takers,” respectively. Results demonstrated that bilingual infants preferred prosocial agents whereas monolingual infants did not prefer prosocial or antisocial agents. Moreover, bilingual infants demonstrated selective preferences for actors who rewarded prosocial actors as well as for those who punished antisocial actors. In contrast, monolingual infants preferred actors who rewarded prosocial characters, but demonstrated no preference for actors who punished antisocial characters. Results point to heightened social sensitivity on the part of bilingual infants in evaluating morally relevant social events. Findings are discussed in terms of possible mechanisms that may link bilingual exposure and social evaluations in infancy.

中文翻译：

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双语婴儿比单语婴儿对道德相关的社会行为更敏感

摘要 形成对他人的社会评价是社会认知的核心组成部分。在这项研究中，在 8 个月大的婴儿中调查了双语体验与社会评价之间的关系。我们比较了单语和双语婴儿对第三方互动的反应，其中角色对中立的演员进行亲社会和反社会行为。然后，相同的亲社会和反社会角色分别受到“给予者”和“接受者”的积极行为的奖励或消极行为的惩罚。结果表明，双语婴儿更喜欢亲社会代理人，而单语婴儿不喜欢亲社会或反社会代理人。此外，双语婴儿表现出对奖励亲社会行为者和惩罚反社会行为者的行为者的选择性偏好。相比之下，单语婴儿更喜欢奖励亲社会角色的演员，但不喜欢惩罚反社会角色的演员。结果表明，双语婴儿在评估与道德相关的社会事件时具有更高的社会敏感性。研究结果根据可能将双语接触与婴儿期社会评价联系起来的可能机制进行了讨论。