Why do some children feel happy about violating ethical norms whereas others feel guilty? This study examined whether children's attention to two types of competing cues during hypothetical transgressions related to their subsequent emotions. Eye tracking was used to test whether attending to other-oriented cues (i.e., a victim's face) versus self-serving cues (e.g., a stolen good) related to kind and selfish emotions. Participants were 4-, 6-, and 8-year-olds (N = 224; Mage = 6.85 years; 51% girls), whose first language was primarily English (80%), and whose primary caregivers mainly reported backgrounds from Asia (40%) or Europe (39%). Overall, almost all children spend more time attending to selfish than other-oriented cues. Latent difference score modeling revealed that higher scores on attentional orientation (i.e., more other-oriented attention compared with self-serving attention or smaller gaps between the two) was significantly related to more kind, but not selfish emotions. This relation remained across age groups. Furthermore, with age, children attended somewhat less to self-serving cues. These findings highlight attention's importance in developing kind emotions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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儿童的注意力取向与他们的善良情绪有关。

为什么有些孩子对违反道德规范感到高兴，而另一些则感到内疚？这项研究检查了儿童在假设的违法行为期间对两种类型的竞争线索的关注是否与他们随后的情绪有关。眼动追踪被用来测试是否关注与善意和自私情绪相关的面向他人的线索（即受害者的脸）与自利的线索（例如被盗的商品）。参与者是 4、6 和 8 岁的儿童（N = 224；Mage = 6.85 岁；51% 的女孩），他们的第一语言主要是英语（80%），其主要照顾者主要报告来自亚洲的背景（ 40%) 或欧洲 (39%)。总的来说，几乎所有的孩子都花更多的时间关注自私而不是其他导向的线索。潜在差异评分模型显示，注意力定向得分较高（即，与自我服务的注意相比，更多以他人为导向的注意或两者之间的差距较小）与更友善但不自私的情绪显着相关。这种关系在不同年龄组中仍然存在。此外，随着年龄的增长，儿童对自利性暗示的关注程度有所降低。这些发现强调了注意力在发展友善情绪中的重要性。（PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2022 APA，保留所有权利）。