Psychological Development and Education ›› 2021, Vol. 37 ›› Issue (4): 465-471.doi: 10.16187/j.cnki.issn1001-4918.2021.04.02

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Can It Be Owner? Young Children's Understanding of Ownership Agents

LI Zhanxing1, ZHU Liqi2,3   

  1. 1. Institute of Social Psychology, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049;
    2. CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Beijing 100101;
    3. Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049
  • Published:2021-07-26

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Abstract: An essential component in the ownership relationship is the owner. To understand who is the owner of an object is important for the normal running of society. This study explored whether young children could discriminate the possible owner from the impossible owner like adults. With a rank-order method, we recruited 93 3~5-year-olds as subjects and a group of adults as comparison to detect preschoolers' intuitions about what can be the owner. The results showed that whether adults or young preschoolers, they all accepted that competent humans as well as incompetent humans could be owners, but denied that artifacts could be owners. The evaluation of 3~5-year-old children on the possibility that animals and plants are owners is significantly higher than that of adults, indicating that compared with adults, they still have the tendency to think that animals and plants are owners. The results demonstrate that there are consistencies and differences between young children and adults in the understanding of ownership agents. We can guide children to understand ownership concept correctly based on development of ownership cognition, so as to improve their social cognition in this field.

Key words: preschooler, ownership, owner, agent, artifacts, animals and plants

CLC Number: 

  • B844
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