Abstract: Moral emotions affect children’s pro-social behaviors. However, majority of studies on this topic focused on the negative moral emotions (e.g. anger, shame, and guilt etc.), the influence of positive moral emotions (such as love, reverence, and pride etc.) on pro-social behavior was largely unknown. Using two types of priming paradigms, the present study aims to test the effect of the positive moral emotions on preschool children’s comforting behavior, which was largely understudied compared to other prosocial behaviors (such as sharing). Study 1 tested 125 preschoolers (3-5 years) from one kindergarten in Chongqing, China. They were randomly assigned to experimental (n=62) and control groups (n=63). The experimental group was treated with imaginative priming in order to activate their positive moral emotions, i.e. children were asked to imagine that they lent their crayons to a partner who was drawing with them, whereas the children in control group were taught how to make a cute caterpillar. To improve the external validity of our study, we developed actual priming paradigm for Study 2. An actual event (rather than imagination) which was happened in real life was used to prime children’s positive moral emotions, i.e. children were asked to help clean up the desk. Additional 132 preschoolers were recruited from another kindergarten. Sixty-nine were assigned to the experimental group and 63 were assigned to the control group. After priming, Both groups were tested on a comforting task, where the children should comfort an injured experimenter (Study 1) or a sad experimenter (Study 2). Video recording during the experiments were replayed to the raters for coding purposes. All the raters had been trained, but they were blind to the purpose of the study. The results showed that: (1) In both studies, experimental groups performed significantly more comforting behavior compared with control groups [Study 1: F (1,119) = 4.51, p < .05, ηp2 = .036; Study 2: F (1,126) = 7.21, p < .01, ηp2 = .05], suggesting that positive moral emotions could increase children’s comforting behaviors. (2) Significant age differences in children’s comforting behavior were also showed in both studies [Study 1: F (2,119) = 9.07, p < .001, ηp2 = .13; Study 2: F (2,126) = 10.00, p < .001, ηp2 = .15]. Post hoc comparisons revealed more comforting behavior in both 4- and 5-year-old in contrast to 3-year-old, while no significant difference was observed between 4- and 5-year-old. (3) There is no evidence of interaction between moral emotions and age [Study 1: F (2,119) = .21，p = .82; Study 2: F (2,126) = .49，p = .62]. Our studies found that positive moral emotions could increase the comforting behavior in children from 3 to 5 years old. In addition, children’s comforting behavior increases with age, which co-occurred with development of cognitive and emotional abilities. The effects of positive moral emotions on comforting behavior showed no difference at the ages of 3, 4 and 5 years. Our findings may provide scientific evidences for fostering positive moral emotions in early cultivation of children’s comforting behavior during preschooler education.

Key words: positive moral emotions, age, 3-5-year-old children, comforting behavior

摘要： 大量研究已经表明，消极道德情绪可以促进幼儿的亲社会行为，但积极道德情绪对幼儿亲社会行为的促进作用仍然缺乏全面探索。安慰行为是幼儿的典型亲社会行为，本研究使用实验法，采取想象启动和实际启动两种范式，考察积极道德情绪对3-5岁257名幼儿的安慰行为的影响。研究发现，幼儿的安慰行为发展具有年龄特征，4岁是幼儿安慰行为发展的转变关键期，更有意义的是，研究证明积极道德情绪对幼儿的安慰行为具有促进效应。本研究结果能为有效培养儿童的安慰行为提供有益建议。

关键词: 积极道德情绪 年龄 3-5岁幼儿 安慰行为