One developmental task faced by children is to identify, remember, and learn from epistemic and moral agents around them who are known to be good or virtuous. Here, in 2 studies, we examined U.S children's (N = 138; 55% female, 45% male; predominantly White, middle-class) memory processes for agents varying in moral and epistemic virtue. In Study 1, when presented with 16 faces of individuals who were said to vary in moral or epistemic virtue, children demonstrated enhanced trait memory for the characteristics of agents lacking in virtue relative to their more moral and competent counterparts. In Study 2, when presented with pairs of faces in the moral and epistemic domains, children showed enhanced content memory for information communicated by an epistemically competent individual with age. Together, these findings provide evidence that when categorizing single agents among many, children show better memory for their negative characteristics; and in a learning context, children show better retention of information communicated by more competent agents. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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儿童对道德和认知美德的归因：对学习和记忆的影响。

儿童面临的一项发展任务是识别、记住和学习他们周围的认知和道德代理人，这些代理人被认为是好的或有美德的。在这里，在 2 项研究中，我们检查了美国儿童（N = 138；55% 女性，45% 男性；主要是白人，中产阶级）在道德和认知美德方面不同的代理人的记忆过程。在研究 1 中，当面对 16 张被认为在道德或认知美德方面存在差异的人的面孔时，儿童对缺乏美德的代理人的特征表现出比他们更有道德和更有能力的对应者的特征记忆增强。在研究 2 中，当在道德和认知领域呈现成对面孔时，儿童表现出随着年龄增长而对认知能力强的个体传达的信息的内容记忆增强。一起，这些发现提供的证据表明，在将单一因素归类到众多因素中时，儿童对其负面特征表现出更好的记忆力；在学习环境中，儿童表现出更好地保留更胜任的代理人传达的信息。（PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2022 APA，保留所有权利）。