The Preschoolers’ Narrative Representations and Hostile Attributional Bias

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between the preschoolers' hostile attributional bias and the narrative representation profiles. Forty five 4-year-old preschoolers (24 boys, 21 girls) participated in this study. In order to measure the children's narrative responses, MacArthur Story Stem Battery (MSSB) was used, and "a cartoon-based social perception task" was used to obtain preschoolers' hostile attributional bias. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and cluster analysis. The results were as follows. First, the rate of hostile attributional style of the subjects was 28.89%. Second, four profiles regarding the narrative representations of 4-year olds were found including: Prosocial (33.3%), Constrained (42.2%), Anxious/Restricted (6.7%), and Dysregulated (17.8%). Third, the rate of preschoolers' hostile attributional style differed by the preschoolers' narrative representation profile. Children with a Prosocial profile showed a less hostile attributional style than children with an Anxious/Restricted profile and Dysregulated profile. In conclusion, preschoolers' hostile attributional bias is related to the narrative representation profile.