Developmental changes in children’s references to self and others in their recollections of past events: A longitudinal study

Abstract

Developmental changes in the references to self and others in preschool children’s independent past event recollections were studied. Children (N = 273; 137 boys, 136 girls) talked about their last birthday and the past weekend twice, roughly two years apart. During the second wave of the study, children made more references to their inner states; the number of references to their actions or characteristics remained the same. Children’s references to the actions of other people who participated in the event increased in time, but talk about characteristics of these people decreased. Later representations of self seem to build on earlier ones: children’s use of inner state talk was predicted by descriptions of one’s actions during the first wave. The development of self and other representations seem to follow similar but separate pathways: children who talked less about their own actions and inner states during the first wave talked more about other people during the second wave.

Keywords:

• Recollections
• personal narratives
• preschool children
• longitudinal
• references to self and other

Acknowledgements

Data for this article was collected as part of the IDEFICS Study (www.idefics.eu). We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the European Community within the Sixth RTD Framework Programme Contract No. 016181 (FOOD).