中道, 圭人

NAKAMICHI, Keito

行動予測（predicting behavior）

推論（reasoning）

確率的な証拠（probabilistic evidence）

社会的カテゴリ（social category）

[SUMMARY] This study examined whether young children use information about the “probability of others’ behaviors” and “social categories” to predict others’ actions. Forty-two younger children（M = 61.62 months）and 47 older children（M = 73.98 months）were presented with a series of scenes in which four boy and four girl dolls had to choose between two houses. This study had three conditions: All four dolls of each gender performed the same behavior（100/０ condition）, three dolls performed the same behavior（75/25 condition）, and two dolls performed the same behavior（50/50 condition）. Then, participants were presented with four new dolls of each gender and asked which house each doll would choose. The results showed that participants in the 50/50 condition were more likely to distribute the dolls equally. Participants in the 100/０ condition were more likely than those in the 75/25 condition to distribute the dolls according to the evidence, predicted that the dolls would behave differently according to their social categories. These results suggest that young children predicted the behavior of novel others based on the “probabilistic behavior of others” and “social categories”.