The children‘s performance on the comprehension tasks differed from the control group in terms of different experimental variables. Regarding the factor of social status, Figure 4-1 presents the mean scores of promise judgments determined under the condition of promises made to people with high and low social status.
Figure 4-1. Mean Scores of Yes Responses to the Promise Judgment Questions Concerning Social Status
All the experimental groups performed significantly differently from the control group (High: F [4, 95] = 14.546, p < .01; Low: F [4, 95] = 7.246, p < .01). The 9-year-olds showed their sensitivity to the promisee‘s social status, but their performances were not adult-like in both conditions. There were significant differences between the performances of the controls and the children, but the promise judgments of the children as a whole were nearly identical.
In the condition without outcomes, most children could make adult-like judgments to recognize a promise with ease. However, when they were forced to take the outcomes into consideration, they tended to be affected by the outcomes, as shown in Figure 4-2:
6-yr-old 7-yr-old 8-yr-old 9-yr-old Control
High 0.58 0.59 0.65 0.68 0.88
Low 0.54 0.57 0.62 0.64 0.81
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
Figure 4-2. Mean Scores of Yes Responses to the Promise Judgment Questions Concerning Outcomes
In the condition ―without outcome‖, the children‘s answers showed no significant differences with those of the adults‘, indicating that they have already had the ability to recognize a promise before the outcome was informed (F [4, 95] = 3.164, p = .17).
On the contrary, in the condition with outcomes, the differences between the promise judgments of the children and those of the adults reached a statistical significance (F [4, 95] = 31.674, p < .01). This discrepancy was more obvious when we further examined the participants‘ promise judgments with the fulfillment of the outcome. In children‘s understanding of promising, the concept of ―promise‖ referred only to the result of the promise rather than to the speech act itself. Figure 4-3 presents the subjects‘ mean scores of promise judgments in the positive and negative outcome conditions.
6-yr-old 7-yr-old 8-yr-old 9-yr-old Control
Without Outcome 0.67 0.68 0.83 0.79 0.88
With Outcome 0.46 0.47 0.44 0.53 0.80
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
Figure 4-3. Mean Scores of Yes Responses to the Promise Judgment Questions Concerning the Outcome Conditions
As Figure 4-3 shows, the experimental groups differed from the control group in that the younger subjects were more likely to accept a promise with a positive outcome as an effective promise. In the positive outcome condition, the children‘s adult-like performances showed that they had no difficulties making correct promise judgments (F [4, 95] = 3.069, p > .05). However, in the negative outcome condition, almost all of the children failed to judge an unfulfilled promise as a real promise (F [4, 95] = 33.09,
p < .01). In our young children‘s mind, the outcome of a promise seemed to be
considered as a part of the promise. The speech act is not considered separately from the action. Therefore, once the promiser broke the promise in the end, the children tended to consider the promise as ―not a real promise‖. Not until the age of nine did a few of the participants begin to demonstrate an emerging acceptance of broken promises as effective promises. The participants in the present study performed consistently with the previous research regarding children‘s concept of promise (Astington, 1988a; Maas and Abbeduto, 2001). Conversely, in the control group, although the subjects showed some doubts when faced with the negative outcome condition, over half of them still considered the broken promise to be a promise.The promiser‘s sincerity of making a promise seemed to have no influence on the participants‘ concept of promise among both the children and the adults. Figure
4-4 presents the mean scores of promise judgments in the sincere and the insincere conditions.
Figure 4-4. Mean Scores of Yes Responses to the Promise Judgment Questions Concerning Sincerity
In the sincere condition, the children‘s performances of promise judgments showed no significant difference with the performances of the control group (F [4, 95] = 2.046, p
= .094). When the promiser was willing to accomplish a future act, the children had no difficulties in judging the utterance as a promise. In the insincere condition, although the ANOVA analysis showed a significance between the groups (F [4, 95] = 3.549, p < .05), the post hoc analysis did not. The p-value of the 6- and 7-year-olds showed an approaching significance (p = .67).
With regard to the variable of the promiser‘s explicitness of making a commitment, Figure 4-5 presents the mean scores of promise judgments in the explicit and implicit conditions.
6-yr-old 7-yr-old 8-yr-old 9-yr-old Control
Sincere 0.69 0.73 0.81 0.85 0.88
Insincere 0.64 0.64 0.78 0.81 0.89
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
Figure 4-5. Mean Scores of Yes Responses to the Promise Judgment Questions Concerning Explicitness
In the explicit condition, a significant difference was found between the children‘s performances with the adults‘ (F [4, 95] = 6.108, p < .01). A clear pattern of a gradual increase was observed in Figure 4-5. The post hoc contrast indicated that the two younger groups (6- and 7-year-olds) were less likely than the older participants to make correct promise judgments. In the implicit condition, all the participants‘
promise judgments were similar, showing no statistical significance (F [4, 95] = 1.499,
p = .209). It was found that our children around the age of eight had no difficulties
recognizing a promise when the promiser made it explicit.In the production task, as showed in Section 4.5, a significant difference of employing different promising strategies was found between the groups. A sizable proportion of the participants showed their preferences for an explicit promise. A clear pattern was observed in which the younger children were not as capable as the older children and the adults (6-year-olds: 62%; 7-year-olds: 75%; 8-year-olds: 79%;
9-year-olds: 88%; Control: 85%). This result might be due to the relative dearth of their linguistic pool. In the youngest group, 10% of the answers were responses unrelated to the promise, or no response, implying that some of the 6-year-old children have not acquired the ability to make a commitment to others. Although the conceptual understanding of promising by young children was not as sophisticated
6-yr-old 7-yr-old 8-yr-old 9-yr-old Control
and complicated as that of adults, they did seem to have developed a rudimentary concept of promise.