The role of expectations in children’s experience of novel events

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 113 (2012) 305–321

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The role of expectations in children’s experience of novel events Suzanne T. Gurland a,⇑, Wendy S. Grolnick b, Rachel W. Friendly b a b

Department of Psychology, Middlebury College, Middlebury, VT 05753, USA Department of Psychology, Clark University, Worcester, MA 01610, USA

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history: Received 2 May 2011 Revised 21 June 2012 Available online 31 July 2012 Keywords: Expectations Disappointment Self-determination theory Interpersonal perception Trait understanding Social information processing

a b s t r a c t The expectations children bring to interactions, as well as the information they receive prior to them, may be important for children’s experiences of new adults. In this study, 148 children (8–13 years old) reported on their expectations of adults, received one of three types of information about a new adult (positive, realistic, or control), and then ‘‘interacted’’ with a videotaped ‘‘controlling’’ adult. The effect of information type depended on children’s age and prior expectations, with expectancy effects emerging in the context of positive information at the younger end of our age range and in the context of realistic information at the older end of our age range. Furthermore, the more expectations exceeded perceptions (i.e., the more disappointment), the lower children’s rapport, affect, and prosocial intentions were and the more internal causal attributions they made. Results are discussed in terms of their theoretical and applied contributions. Ó 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction Imagine that your daughter is about to start school with a teacher whom she expects to be open, supportive, and flexible but whom you know to be overly strict and controlling. Is it best to level with your child, helping her anticipate and prepare for the teacher’s controlling approach? Or might you set her up for a better experience of the teacher if you cheerfully encourage her admittedly unrealistic view of the teacher as supportive and flexible, hoping that she will see in the teacher what she has come to expect?

⇑ Corresponding author. Fax: +1 802 443 2072. E-mail address: [email protected] (S.T. Gurland). 0022-0965/$ - see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2012.06.010

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This applied question rests on the basic developmental question of how children make sense of various sources of social information—such as their own interpersonal expectancies and descriptions provided by others—to understand other people’s traits and behaviors and interact successfully with them. Regarding expectancies, we know that children’s interpersonal perceptions, like those of adults (Cooper & Hazelrigg, 1988; Harris & Rosenthal, 1985; Jussim, 1986; Miller & Turnbull, 1986; Rosenthal & Rubin, 1978), are influenced by their expectancies (Gurland & Grolnick, 2003, 2008; Harris, Milich, Corbitt, Hoover, & Brady, 1992; McAninch, Manolis, Milich, & Harris, 1993). Similarly, children’s interactions and relationships, like those of adults, do not necessarily proceed directly from their expectancies to encounters with others. Rather, children are often exposed to intervening, possibly evaluative, information as their play dates, peer interactions, and introductions to new people and activities are arranged and presented by intermediaries such as parents and teachers (Ladd, Profilet, & Hart, 1992; Parke & Ladd, 1992; Rubin & Sloman, 1984). Such input provided by others constitutes another source of social information, beyond children’s own interpersonal expectancies, that children use in formulating their interpersonal perceptions. The cognitive skills and attentional abilities required for social information processing develop over time (Crick & Dodge, 1994), but by around 8 years of age children undergo a conspicuous shift in their ability to use trait information to predict behavior and to infer traits from behavior (e.g., Liu, Gelman, & Wellman, 2007; Rosati et al., 2001). This shift is consistent with children’s cognitive abilities in that if we take a strict Piagetian perspective, 8-year-old children are firmly in the concrete operational stage (Piaget, 1970) and able to make logical inferences (e.g., about traits or future behavior) from specific information or evidence (e.g., past behavior or available descriptions; Ferguson, Van Roozendaal, & Rule, 1986). Although such inferences do not become abstract until entry into formal operations a few years later (Piaget, 1970), children meanwhile are accumulating social experience with new people. Thus, even within the concrete operational period, there might be age-related changes in social information processing, specifically in the ways that externally provided social information might interact or compete with children’s prior expectancies to affect interpersonal perceptions. For example, older children with more social experience might receive new information with greater cynicism (Mills & Keil, 2005), weighing the trustworthiness of the source and the likely truth value of the information. In considering the interpersonal perception and subsequent relationship development of schoolage children, then, it is important to consider not only what children expect others to be like but also what intervening information they encounter that might temper, exaggerate, or otherwise modify their expectations and with what consequences for their interpersonal perception and developing relationships. Therefore, we measured children’s expectations of a target adult, provided the children with intervening information that might or might not match their expectations, and examined the effects on interpersonally relevant outcomes, with an eye toward whether these effects are age related. Interpersonal expectancy effects Abundant research suggests that interpersonal expectations create ‘‘expectancy effects,’’ whereby positive expectations lead to positive perceptions and negative expectations lead to negative perceptions of experiences (e.g., Cooper & Hazelrigg, 1988; Harris & Rosenthal, 1985; Jussim, 1986; Miller & Turnbull, 1986; Rosenthal & Rubin, 1978; Smith, Jussim, & Eccles, 1999). Such expectancy effects have been studied less among children than among adults, but the available evidence suggests that children’s perceptions are similarly affected. Harris and colleagues (1992) led one group of third- through sixth-grade boys (approximately 8– 11 years old) to expect that their peers had a behavioral problem and gave another group no expectation about their peers. They found that boys who were given the negative expectation were less friendly toward their peers, talked less often during an interaction with them, and were less involved in the tasks they were asked to perform with them. Similarly, McAninch and colleagues (1993) found that 8- to 12-year-olds who were given positive information about an unknown child (that he or she was outgoing and had many friends) were more likely to report liking the child than children who were given negative information about the unknown child (that he or she was shy and had few friends). This pattern held regardless of the subsequent behavior of the unknown child as shy or out-

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going. These studies suggest that children’s interpersonal expectations affect their perceptions of new people. More recent evidence has extended these findings in two key respects, suggesting that (a) beyond their perceptions of other people, children’s expectations also affect their perceptions of relationship quality with others, and (b) beyond peer interactions, these expectancy effects hold with respect to children’s interactions with adults (Gurland & Grolnick, 2003, 2008). In these latter studies, children’s expectations were measured along the dimension of autonomy support to control, drawn from selfdetermination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985, 2000; Ryan, Connell, & Grolnick, 1992; Ryan & Deci, 2000). This dimension captured the extent to which children expected adults to support their sense of volition by providing opportunities for input and developmentally appropriate choice versus the extent to which they expected adults to pressure them toward particular outcomes and ignore or override any behavior at odds with those outcomes. Teachers’ and parents’ self- and other-reported autonomy support has been associated with a wide array of positive motivational, developmental, educational, and self-regulatory outcomes (for reviews, see Grolnick, 2003; Reeve, 2009). Thus, it is a dimension of great importance in children’s interactions with the adults around them. In two studies, the extent to which late elementary school-aged children (approximately 8–12 years old) expected a target adult to be autonomy supportive predicted not only children’s perceptions of the adult as more autonomy supportive but also children’s characterization of their interactions as marked by greater rapport (Gurland & Grolnick, 2003, 2008) above and beyond the adult’s actual style. Thus, expectancy effects extend to children’s interpersonal perception of adults and have implications for the perceived quality of the developing relationship. In the current study, therefore, we measured children’s expectations of adults along the dimension of autonomy support to control and hypothesized that expectations of greater autonomy support would be associated with more positive interpersonal outcomes. In this respect, our study is similar to the studies of Gurland and Grolnick (2003, 2008). An important difference and extension, however, is our investigation of new information in combination with prior expectations. New information Relationships often do not proceed directly from expectations to interpersonal contact. Rather, intervening information is often provided by others. In the case of children, such information is usually provided by adults in their lives (Ladd et al., 1992; Parke & Ladd, 1992; Rubin & Sloman, 1984). For example, parents arrange activities, schedule social plans, and prepare children for whom and what they might encounter. Teachers prepare children for the arrival of a new student or for meeting a visitor to class. Therefore, an important part of understanding how children make sense of socially relevant information is examining how their prior expectations interact or combine with newly encountered information. The little available work on the joint effects of prior expectations and new information suggests that the two independently and interactively affect interpersonal perceptions (McAninch et al., 1993; Mrug & Hoza, 2007; White & Jones, 2000). Such effects depend, however, on the particular interpersonal outcome examined. In McAninch and colleagues’ (1993) study discussed above, in which 8- to 13-year-olds were given an expectancy of a target child as shy or outgoing, the children provided initial ratings of the target that suggested the presence of an expectancy effect. In a subsequent part of the procedure, however, children then encountered new information in the form of a self-description provided by the target child. The self-description included a mix of expectancy-congruent and expectancy-incongruent information. When children then reported their impressions a second time, the new information had mitigated the effect of their prior expectations of the target as shy or outgoing. Liking, however, did not change as a function of the additional information. Thus, both prior expectations and new information influence interpersonal outcomes, but the particular effect depends on the outcome of interest. In another study (Mrug & Hoza, 2007), second-grade students (approximately 7 years old) were either given or not given an expectation that a target child was smart, not smart, kind, mean, shy, or not shy. After watching narrated video clips in which the target child engaged in behaviors that indicated the presence or absence of each of these traits, they rated how much they liked the target

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and how smart, kind, and shy the target was, such that each target was rated on three traits. Children then encountered new information in the form of a narrated video clip in which the target child engaged in two new behaviors incongruent with the prior expectation. The new information changed the children’s liking less than it changed their ratings of the traits. This was only true, however, for children whose initial expectation had been positive. This again suggests that different interpersonal outcomes are differentially susceptible to new information and also begins to suggest that the valence of new information and prior expectations might be important. Similar findings were obtained for first- and second-grade students (approximately 6–7 years old) in a study examining children’s perceptions of peers as a function of peer reputation and teacher feedback (White & Jones, 2000). Children were led to believe that a target child had a certain reputation, watched a video of the target engaging in behaviors consistent with the reputation, and then encountered new information by watching a video of the target receiving positive, corrective, or neutral feedback from a teacher. Afterward, children rated the likeability of the target child and provided nominations (from among the target and the other children in the video) for various positive and negative descriptors. Both target reputation and teacher feedback independently affected most outcomes, but the two interacted to affect the positive descriptors outcome. Specifically, children nominated the target child for fewer positive descriptors if they initially expected the target to be well liked and then witnessed a teacher providing corrective feedback. Likeability did not show this interaction. Thus, once again, outcomes were differentially affected and valence appeared to matter. What is the difference between the outcomes that are and are not affected by the addition of new information? Children might more readily incorporate into their perceptions new information regarding overt observable behaviors, such as shyness and outgoingness, than less observable affective appraisals, such as liking (McAninch et al., 1993; White & Jones, 2000). Alternatively, children’s judgments regarding themselves (i.e., how much they like the target) might be more resistant to new information than their judgments regarding others (i.e., how shy the target is) (McAninch et al., 1993). Yet another possibility is that whereas trait descriptions are affected, global evaluative judgments are not because children use such preexisting global evaluations as a lens through which they interpret new descriptive trait information (Mrug & Hoza, 2007). Because of the multiple possible explanations for which interpersonal outcomes are affected by new information, we wished to include in the current study a range of outcomes to include behavioral, affective, evaluative, other-focused, and self-focused outcomes. Specifically, we examined children’s perceptions of adult autonomy support, their affect during the interaction, reports of rapport, intentions to behave prosocially with the adult in the future, and causal attributions for the adult’s behavior. The inclusion of this range of outcomes is another important difference between the current study and prior studies. We hypothesized that encountering new information would interact with children’s prior expectations of adults, particularly for those outcomes that are descriptive (e.g., perceptions of autonomy support, causal attributions) or behavioral (e.g., intended prosocial behavior) relative to those that are affective (e.g., affect during interaction) or evaluative (e.g., rapport).

Disappointment Because earlier work suggested that the valence of expectations and new information is important, we wished to investigate this directly. A positively valenced experience in the context of negative expectations and information can be considered a ‘‘pleasant surprise,’’ whereas a negatively valenced experience in the context of positive expectations and information can be considered a ‘‘disappointment.’’ Whereas pleasant surprises appear to be interpersonally benign, disappointments appear to affect interpersonal judgments (White & Jones, 2000). This is consistent with findings from elsewhere in the literature suggesting, for example, that in preparing children for painful medical procedures, it is better to provide them with accurate information rather than misleadingly positive or no information (e.g., Beale, Bradlyn, & Kato, 2003; Claar, Walker, & Smith, 2002; Jaaniste, Hayes, & von Baeyer, 2007; Johnson, 1999). Therefore, we focused specifically on potential disappointments and further hypothesized a ‘‘disappointment effect,’’ whereby a negative experience in the context of unrealistically high expectations would predict poorer interpersonal outcomes.

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In sum, then, we sought to expand our understanding of children’s developing social cognition by using an encounter with a novel adult as a window into the role of prior expectations and new information on interpersonally relevant outcomes. We hypothesized that prior expectations and new information would interact to affect outcomes, particularly for behavioral and descriptive outcomes and particularly when the interpersonal encounter can be characterized as a disappointment relative to the prior expectation and information. We further aimed to investigate whether these relations would differ within the 8- to 13-year age range. Specifically, older children might be expected to treat new information with greater skepticism, in which case new information would emerge as a weaker moderator for older children, relative to younger children, in this age range.

Methods Participants The participants were 148 students in 10 classes in a magnet school (i.e., a public school that draws students from across the usual geographically based boundaries) in a large New England city in the northeastern United States. The sample was 51% female and 49% male. Students were in Grade 3 (n = 43, Mage = 8.37 years, SD = 0.49), Grade 4 (n = 34, Mage = 9.74 years, SD = 0.62), Grade 5 (n = 18, Mage = 10.50 years, SD = 0.51), and Grade 6 (n = 53, Mage = 11.53 years, SD = 0.61).

Procedure The study was approved by the institutional review board at Clark University and vetted by the principal of the hosting school, who judged the length and content of the procedure to be appropriate for his students. Students in each class whose parents had consented for them to participate were block randomized into one of three conditions (realistic introduction, positive introduction, or control), such that each classroom contained one group in each condition. Groups ranged in size from 3 to 8 students, each of whom participated in a single session lasting 30 min. All questionnaire items were read aloud to the children as they followed along on their own papers. Children were frequently reminded to report on their own individual opinions, and the small group sizes allowed researchers to ensure that the children were not conferring with one another. None of the children called out or disrupted others, and we excluded the data from 1 child who was seen looking at others’ papers. Following a brief description of the procedure, children reported on basic demographic information and rated their preconceived expectations of ‘‘adults who work with children’’ on the dimension of controllingness to autonomy supportiveness (using the Autonomy Support Questionnaire–Expected, General). They were then introduced to ‘‘Ms. Smith,’’ a woman ‘‘who is going to be working with kids,’’ and told that they would be doing ‘‘a couple of things with her today.’’ The wording of the introduction was identical in all three conditions, with the exception of one sentence conveying the new information that was either true to Ms. Smith’s style (realistic condition), unrealistically positive about her style (positive condition), or silent on the question of her style (control condition). Specifically, the introduction in the realistic condition included the sentence, ‘‘Sometimes, when kids work with her, they get to do exactly what they want to do, but sometimes they have to do the things that she needs them to do, so you may not get to decide exactly what you do with her.’’ Thus, the sentence conveyed that Ms. Smith would sometimes support children’s autonomy by letting them decide what to do but would sometimes control them by requiring them to do something not of their choosing. The introduction in the positive condition included the sentence, ‘‘When kids work with her, they always get to do exactly what they want to do, so you will probably get to do exactly what you want to do when you meet with her today.’’ Thus, the sentence unrealistically conveyed that Ms. Smith would always support children’s autonomy by letting them decide what to do. The introduction in the control condition included no indication of how controlling or autonomy supportive Ms. Smith was likely to be. After hearing the introduction, children reported on their revised expectations of Ms. Smith (using the Autonomy Support Questionnaire–Expected, Specific).

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The groups of children then participated in a simulated ‘‘interaction’’ with Ms. Smith, who appeared on videotape but spoke to the children as if she were actually in the room with them. For example, she made requests and asked questions of the children, paused for them to respond, and then responded in turn as if she could hear and see them. Using controlling locution throughout, she took the children through a brief drawing task. We elected to have all children encounter a controlling Ms. Smith for both practical and theoretical reasons—namely, because it is of practical importance to learn what might mitigate children’s experience of such negative encounters and because we specifically wanted to test for a disappointment effect in children’s social cognition. Consistent with earlier studies (Gurland & Grolnick, 2003, 2008), and consistent with the interactive format of several currently popular television programs, children treated the videotaped nature of the interaction as routine. No children questioned whether Ms. Smith could actually see or hear them; that is, they understood that she was not physically present but that pauses in the tape had been used to simulate a live interaction. Some, prior to debriefing, even wondered whether Ms. Smith was actually going to be their teacher in a coming year. The ‘‘controllingness’’ of Ms. Smith’s style was achieved in the videotape through language focused on evaluation, emphasis on limit setting without explanation or reflection of children’s perspectives, and strict adherence to Ms. Smith’s schedule. For example, in part of the drawing task, Ms. Smith said, ‘‘Don’t draw something else instead—it has to be an animal,’’ indicating that children were required to follow her rules without acknowledging that there might be many other things that they would rather draw. Similarly, after a sufficient amount of time had passed, Ms. Smith informed the children, ‘‘You should be finished by now—there isn’t much time,’’ rather than using more autonomy supportive language to let the children know that their time was nearly up (i.e., ‘‘Did you have a chance to finish yet?’’). In a previous study using this videotape, children generally reported feeling tense, pressured, and nervous when interacting with Ms. Smith, indicating that they had indeed experienced her as controlling (Gurland & Grolnick, 2003). Following the ‘‘interaction’’ with Ms. Smith, children reported on how controlling versus autonomy supportive they found her to be (using the Autonomy Support Questionnaire–Perceived), as well as the degree of rapport they experienced with her (using the Child/Adult Rapport Measure–Child Report), and how they felt with her (using the Affect Questionnaire). They also reported on their intentions to behave prosocially in future interactions with Ms. Smith ‘‘. . . if she were to be your teacher next year’’ (using the Future Behaviors Questionnaire) and on their understanding of the reasons for her controlling behavior (using the Causal Attributions Questionnaire). In a debriefing that followed, children were informed that Ms. Smith was actually a graduate student colleague of the researchers, that she would not be seeing or judging their drawings, and that she behaved as she did at our direction to find out how children would react to her. Finally, children were assured that Ms. Smith would not become their teacher. Measures Autonomy Support Questionnaire–Expected, General As a measure of children’s preconceived expectations, the Autonomy Support Questionnaire–Expected, General (Gurland & Grolnick, 2003) was adapted for this study with the addition of two items that probe specifically for the extent to which children expect adults to allow them to do things their own way. The measure consists of a single sentence stem, ‘‘Most adults who work with kids . . .,’’ and contains 11 sentence endings relating to controlling versus autonomy supportive behaviors and attitudes (e.g., ‘‘. . . let kids do exactly what they want to do,’’ ‘‘. . . are pushy’’ [reverse-scored]). Each item is rated on a 4-point scale ranging from 1 (not at all true) to 4 (very true). Controlling items were reverse-scored, and summary scores were created by averaging the 11 items, with higher scores indicating higher levels of expected autonomy support. Internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha) was .79. Autonomy Support Questionnaire–Expected, Specific As a measure of children’s revised expectations, the Autonomy Support Questionnaire–Expected, Specific (Gurland & Grolnick, 2003) was adapted for the current study with the addition of the same two items specified above. The measure permitted a test of whether children revise their expectations

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in the face of new information and served secondarily as a manipulation check on the introductions that defined each condition. It begins with the sentence stem, ‘‘Ms. Smith seems like someone who . . .,’’ and contains the same 11 sentence endings from above with the same rating scale, tapping how controlling versus autonomy supportive children expect Ms. Smith to be. Summary scores were computed as above, and Cronbach’s alpha was .79. Autonomy Support Questionnaire–Perceived As above, the Autonomy Support Questionnaire–Perceived (Gurland & Grolnick, 2003) was adapted for the current study with the addition of two items. It consists of six sentences describing Ms. Smith (e.g., ‘‘She was pushy’’ [reverse-scored], ‘‘She let me make decisions’’). Children rate the degree to which each sentence describes Ms. Smith on a 4-point scale ranging from 1 (not at all true) to 4 (very true). Items were reverse-scored as appropriate, and summary scores were created. Higher scores indicated greater perceived autonomy support. Cronbach’s alpha was .80. Child/Adult Rapport Measure–Child Report A 20-item measure, the Child/Adult Rapport Measure–Child Report (Gurland & Grolnick, 2003), was designed to elicit children’s perceptions of the rapport they experienced while interacting with Ms. Smith. Each item is rated on a 4-point scale ranging from 1 (not at all true) to 4 (very true) and includes sentences such as ‘‘She seemed to like children,’’ ‘‘She made me feel rushed’’ (reverse-scored), and ‘‘She made me feel important.’’ Items were reverse-scored where appropriate, and summary scores were computed, with higher scores indicating greater rapport. Cronbach’s alpha was .94. Affect Questionnaire The Affect Questionnaire consists of a sentence stem, ‘‘During the task with Ms. Smith, I felt . . .,’’ followed by nine words describing possible affective responses to the interaction with Ms. Smith: relaxed, tense, pressured, happy, nervous, calm, surprised, disappointed, and unhappy. The items were based on the pressure/tension factor of the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (Ryan, 1982; Ryan, Mims, & Koestner, 1983), with the addition of two items, ‘‘disappointed’’ and ‘‘surprised,’’ which were intended to capture the affective differential between expected and actual experience. Each item is rated on a 4point scale ranging from 1 (not at all true) to 4 (very true). Negative items were reverse-scored, and an average summary score was calculated, with higher scores indicative of more positive affect. Cronbach’s alpha was .81. Future Behaviors Questionnaire The 12-item Future Behaviors Questionnaire, created for the current study, was designed to measure children’s intention of behaving prosocially in future interactions with Ms. Smith. It begins with the sentence stem, ‘‘If Ms. Smith were to be your teacher next year . . .,’’ and contains sentence endings assessing children’s desire to cooperate with Ms. Smith (e.g., ‘‘. . . how much would you feel like doing exactly what Ms. Smith asked you to do?’’), their excitement or disappointment about being in Ms. Smith’s class (e.g., ‘‘. . . how much would you look forward to being in Ms. Smith’s class?’’), their anticipation of seeking help from Ms. Smith (e.g., ‘‘. . . how often would you go to Ms. Smith next year if somebody was being mean to you or teasing you about something?’’), and their intention to avoid contact with Ms. Smith (e.g., ‘‘. . . how much would you try to stay out of Ms. Smith’s way next year?’’ [reverse-scored]). Each item is rated on a 4-point scale, with higher scores indicating more of the indicated behavior. Although items were created to correspond to four separate subscales, factor analysis based on the scree criterion indicated a single factor for prosocial future behavior (eigenvalue = 5.68); therefore, the subscales were combined for all subsequent analyses. Cronbach’s alpha for the combined scale was .89. Causal Attributions Questionnaire The Causal Attributions Questionnaire, a six-item, face-valid scale, taps children’s causal attributions for Ms. Smith’s behavior. For the purposes of measuring causal attributions for negative behaviors, the questionnaire provides the set that Ms. Smith had, in fact, been controlling. Specifically, it is prefaced by the prompt, ‘‘When you were working with Ms. Smith, you were not allowed to do the . . .

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tasks exactly the way you wanted to do them.’’ The scale then provides the stem, ‘‘Ms. Smith did not let me do the tasks exactly the way that I wanted because . . .,’’ followed by items that attribute her behavior to negative personality traits (internal scale; e.g., ‘‘. . . because she is a pushy person’’) or to negative circumstances (e.g., ‘‘. . . she was having a bad day today’’). Each item is rated on a 4-point scale ranging from 1 (not at all true) to 4 (very true). Items corresponded to three subscales: Internal (a = .77), External (a = .17), and Environmental (a = .29) causal attributions, based on the perceived locus of the negative behavior. However, because of the low reliabilities of the External and Environmental scales, only the Internal causal attributions scale was used in the current analyses. Results Preliminary results A first step was to determine whether boys and girls could be analyzed together. Independent samples t tests yielded no effects on any outcome, with a single isolated exception. Specifically, girls (M = 2.98) initially expected more autonomy support from adults than did boys (M = 2.78), t(146) = 2.279, p < .03. Therefore, we analyzed boys’ and girls’ data together. Age and its associated interactions were included in all models because we wished to test for developmental change. We also confirmed that the three experimental groups did not initially differ on preconceived expectations, F(2, 145) = 0.97, p > .30. Means and standard deviations are presented in Table 1. The study’s major constructs were intercorrelated in expected directions (Table 1). For example, greater expected autonomy support was generally associated with greater rapport, more positive affect, greater intended prosocial behavior, and less internal attributions for the adult’s behavior. Similarly, rapport, positive affect, and intended prosocial behavior all were positively correlated with one another and negatively correlated with internality of attributions. Primary results Considering all possible contrasts among our three experimental conditions would have unnecessarily propagated the risk of Type I error. Therefore, we conservatively limited our analyses to two theory- and hypothesis-driven contrasts: positive versus realistic and control (hereafter referred to as positive contrast) and realistic versus positive and control (hereafter referred to as realistic contrast). These contrasts, children’s preconceived expectations, age, and relevant interactions were entered into regressions to test our hypotheses (Table 2). When interactions arose, we interpreted them by evaluating the effect of one predictor at values equal to 1 standard deviation below and 1 standard deviation SD above the (centered) mean of the other predictor (Aiken & West, 1991). Revised expectations Revised expectations were measured as children’s expectations of autonomy support specifically from Ms. Smith, and they yielded main effects of age and condition. Specifically, revised expectations

Table 1 Means, standard deviations, and intercorrelations for main variables.

* **

Variable

M

SD

1

2

3

4

5

6

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

2.89 3.45 2.15 2.24 2.39 2.09 2.77

0.52 0.45 0.82 0.78 0.77 0.72 1.01

– 0.24** 0.17* 0.20* 0.10 0.22** 0.26**

– 0.16 0.11 0.10 0.17* 0.17*

– 0.75** 0.66** 0.56** 0.69**

– 0.71** 0.63** 0.66**

– 0.51** 0.54**

–

Preconceived expectations Revised expectations. Perceived autonomy support Rapport Affect Prosocial future behavior Internal attributions

p < .05. p < .01.

0.67**

313

S.T. Gurland et al. / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 113 (2012) 305–321 Table 2 Effects of age, preconceived expectations, and condition contrasts. Outcome variable and predictor

R2

f2

Revised expectations Age Preconceived expectations Positive contrast Realistic contrast Age  Positive Contrast Age  Realistic Contrast PE  Positive Contrast PE  Realistic Contrast Age  PE  Positive Contrast Age  PE  Realistic Contrast Rapport Age Preconceived expectations Positive contrast Realistic contrast Age  Positive Contrast Age  Realistic Contrast PE  Positive Contrast PE  Realistic Contrast Age  PE  Positive Contrast Age  PE  Realistic Contrast Prosocial future behavior Age Preconceived expectations Positive contrast Realistic contrast Age  Positive Contrast Age  Realistic Contrast PE  Positive Contrast PE  Realistic Contrast Age  PE  Positive Contrast Age  PE  Realistic Contrast Internality of causal attributions Age Preconceived expectations Positive contrast Realistic contrast Age  Positive Contrast Age  Realistic Contrast PE  Positive Contrast PE  Realistic Contrast Age  PE  Positive Contrast Age  PE  Realistic Contrast Perceived autonomy support Age Preconceived expectations Positive contrast Realistic contrast Age  Positive Contrast Age  Realistic Contrast PE  Positive Contrast PE  Realistic Contrast Age  PE  Positive Contrast Age  PE  Realistic Contrast Affect Age Preconceived expectations Positive contrast

0.22

0.28

0.15

0.17

0.18

0.14

0.09

B

SE

t

0.16 0.30 0.29 0.07 0.11 0.09 0.53 0.23 0.03 0.15

0.08 0.21 0.09 0.09 0.06 0.06 0.17 0.16 0.08 0.08

2.05* 1.45 3.45** 0.74 1.72  1.43 3.04** 1.41 0.44 1.81 

0.30 0.02 0.07 0.18 0.28 0.10 0.20 0.23 0.25 0.38

0.14 0.38 0.16 0.16 0.12 0.12 0.32 0.30 0.14 0.15

2.13* 0.06 0.43 1.13 2.44* 0.83 0.64 0.77 1.80  2.59*

0.32 0.73 0.00 0.22 0.30 0.17 0.44 0.13 0.11 0.12

0.13 0.34 0.14 0.15 0.11 0.11 0.29 0.27 0.13 0.14

2.54* 2.14* 0.00 1.50 2.88** 1.57 1.55 0.49 0.83 0.90

0.15 0.85 0.09 0.42 0.24 0.03 0.39 0.16 0.28 0.33

0.18 0.49 0.20 0.20 0.15 0.15 0.41 0.38 0.18 0.19

0.85 1.74  0.44 2.05* 1.58 0.17 0.97 0.44 1.55 1.72 

0.11 0.03 0.06 0.27 0.21 0.00 0.18 0.25 0.33 0.49

0.15 0.40 0.16 0.17 0.12 0.12 0.33 0.31 0.15 0.16

0.74 0.08 0.36 1.63 1.69  0.04 0.81 0.55 2.24* 3.14**

0.15 0.49 0.02

0.14 0.38 0.16

1.04 1.29 0.12

0.17

0.21

0.21

0.16

0.10

(continued on next page)

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Table 2 (continued) Outcome variable and predictor Realistic contrast Age  Positive Contrast Age  Realistic Contrast PE  Positive Contrast PE  Realistic Contrast Age  PE  Positive Contrast Age  PE  Realistic Contrast

R2

f2

B

SE 0.23 0.18 0.06 0.42 0.48 0.15 0.40

0.16 0.12 0.12 0.32 0.30 0.14 0.15

t 1.44 1.49 0.51 1.59 1.32 1.08 2.68**

Note: PE, Preconceived Expectations.   p < .10. * p < .05. ** p < .01.

diminished with increasing age, and children who were given the overly positive information that Ms. Smith would be autonomy supportive expected her to be more autonomy supportive (M = 3.61) than children in the other two conditions (M = 3.37). This latter main effect was qualified, however, by a Positive Contrast  Preconceived Expectations interaction. To interpret the interaction, we evaluated the effect of the positive contrast on revised expectations at values equal to 1 standard deviation below and 1 standard deviation above the (centered) mean of preconceived expectations (Aiken & West, 1991). As indicated in Fig. 1A, children who entered the study with high preconceived expectations were unaffected by condition (B = 0.09, p > .40), maintaining their high expectations even after new information was introduced. For children who came in with low preconceived expectations, condition mattered (B = 0.43, p < .001). Specifically, children who came in with low expectations but received positive information about Ms. Smith’s autonomy supportiveness revised their expectations upward (equal to those of children who had come in with high expectations). By contrast, children who came in with low expectations but received realistic or no information about Ms. Smith retained their low expectations of her autonomy supportiveness.

Rapport A main effect of age suggested that rapport diminished with increasing age. This main effect was qualified, however, by an Age  Positive Contrast interaction and further by an Age  Preconceived Expectations  Realistic Contrast interaction. The two-way interaction (Fig. 1B) indicated that condition had no effect at the younger end of our age range, whereas at older ages overly positive information was negatively predictive of rapport in the positive condition (B = –0.37, p < .01) but unrelated to rapport in the other conditions (B = 0.00, ns). For the three-way interaction, inspection of the pattern of means suggested that rapport was higher in the realistic condition than in the other conditions, but at younger ages this effect emerged only in the context of low prior expectations, whereas at older ages it emerged only in the context of high prior expectations (Fig. 2A). Examining the slopes of the lines in Fig. 2 suggests the presence of an assimilative expectancy effect, with low (high) prior expectations predicting low (high) rapport, but under different conditions at younger and older ages. At younger ages the expectancy effect emerged in the context of highly positive information about the target adult, whereas at older ages the effect emerged in the context of realistic information.

Prosocial future behavior Prosocial future behavior was affected by age, preconceived expectations, and the Age  Positive Contrast interaction. Specifically, preconceived expectations of greater autonomy support were predictive of greater intended prosocial behavior, and older age predicted less intended prosocial future behavior. This latter effect of age, however, was modified by an Age  Positive Contrast interaction. The interaction suggested an effect of condition, with overly positive information predicting less predicted future prosocial behavior, but only at the older end of our age range (Fig. 1C).

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A

B

C

Fig. 1. Two-way interactions affecting revised expectations of autonomy support, rapport, and prosocial future behavior: (A) Preconceived Expectations  Positive Contrast effect for revised expectations; (B) Age  Positive Contrast effect for rapport; (C) Age  Positive Contrast effect for prosocial future behavior. PE, preconceived expectations; SD, standard deviation.

Internality of attributions A main effect of condition emerged for internality of attributions. Specifically, the attributions made by children in the realistic condition were significantly less internal (M = 1.45) than the attributions made by children in the positive/control condition (M = 1.92). Perceived autonomy support Age and preconceived expectations interacted with both the positive contrast and the realistic contrast to affect perceived autonomy support. (We report here, and plot in Fig. 2B, only the interaction

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A

B

C

Fig. 2. Age  Preconceived Expectations  Condition effects for rapport, perceived autonomy support, and affect: (A) rapport; (B) perceived autonomy support; (C) affect. PE, preconceived expectations; SD, standard deviation.

for the realistic contrast to make the findings and the plot more readily comparable to those displayed for other outcomes in Figs. 2A and C.) The three-way interaction for perceived autonomy support was nearly identical to that reported above for rapport. Specifically, a condition effect emerged, with the realistic condition yielding greater perceived autonomy support, but under different conditions at different ages. At the younger end of the age range the condition effect emerged in the context of low prior expectations, whereas at the older of the age range it emerged in the context of high prior expectations (Fig. 2B). The slopes of the lines in Fig. 2B suggest that at younger ages an assimilative expectancy effect emerged in the context of highly positive or no information about the target adult, whereas at older ages assimilation emerged in the context of realistic information and contrast emerged in the context of highly positive or control information.

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Table 3 The disappointment effect: Partial correlations between expectation/perception discrepancy scores and outcomes. Expected autonomy support (preconceived) Rapport Affect Prosocial future behavior Internal causal attributions * **

0.41** 0.42** 0.20* 0.30**

Expected autonomy support (revised) 0.45** 0.37** 0.20* 0.33**

p < .05. p < .01.

Affect Age, preconceived expectations, and the realistic contrast produced a three-way interactive effect on affect (Fig. 2C). At younger ages, the pattern was the same as reported above for rapport and perceived autonomy support; namely, affect was higher (i.e., more positive) in the realistic condition, but only in the context of low prior expectations. At older ages, affect was uniformly higher in the realistic condition regardless of prior expectations (Fig. 2C). Examination of the slopes of the lines in Fig. 2C suggests that younger children displayed an assimilative expectancy effect in the context of positive or no information.

A disappointment effect? The two- and three-way interactions involving preconceived expectations and condition that emerged for four of our outcomes (revised expectations, rapport, perceived autonomy support, and affect) seem to support the possibility of a ‘‘disappointment effect,’’ whereby children’s expectations are unrealistically elevated by positive information, only to then be dashed by the reality of Ms. Smith’s controlling behavior, leading to negative interpersonal outcomes. To test the idea of a disappointment effect more directly, we operationalized disappointment as the difference between expectations and perceptions (controlling for the absolute level of each). Specifically, we created discrepancy scores by subtracting children’s expectations from their perceptions of autonomy support (separately for their preconceived and revised expectations). Table 3 presents the correlations between these discrepancy scores and our outcomes, partialling out each child’s mean as a way of controlling for the absolute levels of each variable. Results indicate that disappointment was associated with lower rapport, less positive affect, less endorsement of future prosocial behavior, and more internality of causal attributions. In other words, the more children’s perceptions of Ms. Smith fell short of their expectations, the more negative their interpersonal outcomes were.

Discussion In this study, we sought to investigate how children who are already able to make trait inferences from behavior and behavioral inferences from traits would integrate new social information with their preconceived expectations to affect interpersonally relevant outcomes such as rapport, perceptions of another person, causal attributions about that person, and intentions to behave prosocially toward that person in the future. Of particular interest were the effects of realistic and unrealistically positive expectations and information about a new adult. Therefore, we measured children’s preconceived expectations of a novel adult’s autonomy supportiveness versus controllingness and provided realistic, overly positive, or no information about the novel adult. All children then encountered a controlling adult and reported on an array of outcomes. Results differed by outcome and age but generally suggested that prior expectations and new information play a role, both independently and interactively, in children’s interpersonal perceptions and experiences. In particular, the pattern of findings suggests that when children’s low or negative expectations are heightened by unrealistically positive information, their interpersonal outcomes are especially negative, and this is particularly true at the upper end of our 8- to 13-year age range.

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Before discussing the interactive effects among age, prior expectations, and new information, it is worth noting a few main effects of interest. With respect to age, older children (relative to younger children) reported revised expectations of the adult as less autonomy supportive, reported less rapport with the adult, and anticipated less prosocial behavior toward her. Thus, even among children whose interpersonal perception is already sophisticated enough to enable behavioral and trait inferences, there are nonetheless age-related differences in the processing of social information. With respect to main effects of prior expectations, consistent with hypothesized expectancy effects, children’s preconceived expectations of autonomy support predicted greater prosocial future behavior and, marginally, less internality of attributions. Such assimilative expectancy effects are consistent with prior work on children’s expectations (Harris et al., 1992; McAninch et al., 1993) and with prior work illustrating that children’s expectations specifically of autonomy support predict more positive interpersonal outcomes (Gurland & Grolnick, 2003, 2008). However, our findings also extend previous work in two ways. First, our findings suggest that prior expectations affect the perceived quality of children’s relationships not only in the current moment but also into the future as they anticipate increased prosocial behavior with the adult. Second, our findings suggest that children’s understanding of the causes of others’ behavior is also affected by their expectations. This is of practical importance because children’s causal attributions about their parents’ behavior, for example, have been linked to their own and their parents’ ratings of the quality of their relationship as well as to their interpersonal behavior with their parents (Fincham, Beach, Arias, & Brody, 1998). With respect to main effects of new information, as predicted, children revised their expectations in keeping with the new information they encountered. Specifically, those who received overly positive information about the adult raised their expectations relative to those who received realistic or no information. In addition, children who received realistic information attributed the adult’s behavior to more internal causes than children who received positive or no information. Children’s interpersonal perceptions, thus, appear to be affected by age-related developmental differences, by expectancy effects, and by social information encountered in the environment. Qualifying these independent effects, however, were interactive effects suggesting that the influence of new information must be considered relative to children’s prior expectations and to their age. Exposure to overly positive information depressed rapport and anticipated prosocial behavior at the upper end, but not at the lower end, of our age range. A possible explanation is that older children might respond with skepticism to the overly positive information and, therefore, discount aspects of their relationship to the adult. Such an explanation would also be consistent with the three-way interactions that emerged for some outcomes, whereby at younger ages expectations and outcomes are positively related in the presence of positive information, whereas at older ages expectations and outcomes are positively related in the presence of realistic information. We suggest that such differences might be related to children’s development of skepticism. During the period from 6 to 11 years of age, children become more skeptical regarding value-laden claims that others make about themselves (Heyman, Fu, & Lee, 2007). Our findings suggest the possibility that, with age, children show increasing skepticism regarding overly positive claims made about others as well and discount their interpersonal perceptions accordingly. These effects further illustrate, consistent with earlier work (McAninch et al., 1993; Mrug & Hoza, 2007; White & Jones, 2000), that children’s interpersonal impressions are affected not only by expectancy effects and new information but also by their expectations in relation to the new information. Our study also extends these findings by suggesting that children’s impression formation with adults is like that of their impression formation with peers, that autonomy support is an important and meaningful dimension for children’s experience of adults, and that children’s interactions and relationships are affected by their expectations in relation to new information not only for the duration of the interaction but also going forward into the future. Our findings also support the existence of a disappointment effect, whereby the adult’s controlling behavior disappointed those children whose expectations had been raised unrealistically high, leading to more negative interpersonal reactions. The more children’s expectations of autonomy support exceeded their perceptions (controlling for the initial level of expectations), the more negative their outcomes were, including lower rapport, more negative affect, less intention to behave prosocially with the adult in the future, and more internal causal attributions for the adult’s controlling behavior.

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This effect held for both preconceived and revised expectations, suggesting that it was not simply the longevity of children’s expectations but rather the difference between expectation and experience— the disappointment experience itself—that produced the negative outcomes. Such an explanation might also help to explain why exposure to positive information was predictive of less intended prosocial behavior in the future and greater internality of children’s attributions regarding the adult’s behavior as well as why children who heard realistic information reported marginally more positive affect than those in the other two conditions. The disappointment effect is especially noteworthy in contrast to literature supporting the benefits of ‘‘false’’ hope, which asserts that hope leads to positive outcomes regardless of whether or not it is realistic (e.g., Helm, 2004; Snyder & Rand, 2003; Snyder, Rand, King, Feldman, & Woodward, 2002). In the interpersonal domain, however, the negative impact of disappointment in another’s behavior appears to outweigh any benefit of unrealistic hope. Finally, our findings allow us to weigh in on the possible reasons why certain of children’s interpersonal outcome variables are affected by prior expectations and new information, whereas others are not. Recall that earlier researchers suggested that children might more readily incorporate new information regarding overt observable behaviors relative to less observable affective appraisals such as liking (McAninch et al., 1993; White & Jones, 2000), that children’s judgments regarding themselves might be more resistant to new information than their judgments regarding others (McAninch et al., 1993), or that children use their existing evaluations as a lens through which they interpret new information, leading to effects on trait descriptions but not on global evaluative judgments (Mrug & Hoza, 2007). We found effects for children’s prosocial future behavior, which is a judgment regarding the self, suggesting that self versus other is not the key distinction. We also found effects for internality of children’s causal attributions, which is not an overt observable behavior, suggesting that overt versus covert is also not the key distinction. Finally, we found effects for rapport, which is our closest outcome to a global evaluative judgment, suggesting that the trait description versus global evaluation distinction alone does not explain the pattern either. In light of the complex interactive effects that emerged in our study and differed subtly from one outcome to the next, we tentatively suggest that no single dimension will neatly sort outcomes into affected and unaffected categories; rather, the particular profile of developmental and social–cognitive moderators investigated might account for differences in which outcomes appear to be subject to effects of expectancies and new information. Certain constraints of our study design temper the conclusions we can draw. First, there was no negative prompt used in the study (children were given either overly positive, realistic, or no information), and all children encountered a controlling adult. Thus, statistical interactions that focused on the overly positive manipulation in the context of low preconceived expectations might have looked somewhat different if additional experimental conditions had been included. Similarly, such interactions might represent a ceiling effect for those children who came in expecting autonomy support and were exposed to expectancy congruent (i.e., positive) information. Second, research on children’s evaluation of information sources (e.g., Mills & Grant, 2009; Mills & Keil, 2005, 2008) suggests that our findings might be modified by the role of the person providing the information, that person’s selfinterest, and that person’s existing relationship with the target. Despite these limitations, there is practical value in the findings. In preparing children for difficult new interpersonal encounters, our findings suggest that, particularly as children approach the teen years, it is best not to ‘‘sugarcoat’’ the information we provide. Although we may be inclined to reassure children in the face of unpleasant encounters, nurturing such ‘‘false hope’’ appears to result in disappointment and a variety of negative interpersonal outcomes. The current study supports the idea that children’s impressions and experiences of adults are influenced by their age, preconceived expectations, new information they encounter, and (most important) the content of the new information relative to their prior expectations and their age. Disappointment that follows from children having their low expectations raised to unrealistic heights by overly positive information appears to be particularly detrimental to their interpersonal outcomes. Thus, from the standpoint of basic research, the study contributes to our understanding of how children process social information in forming impressions of and relationships with new adults, and from the standpoint of applied work, the study provides important information about how best to prepare children for difficult or unpleasant encounters.

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