Cross‐sectional research employing the mirror mark test of self‐recognition has dominated research focused on the development of self‐reflection in children. However, the mirror mark test may fail to capture the complexity of self as a social object, and the developmental antecedents and consequences of self‐reflection remain largely uncharted. Here, we provide an overview of the extant longitudinal data on mirror self‐recognition and present our own longitudinal findings based on a multidimensional parent‐report measure of children's self‐development. Offering a snapshot of development over 3 months for 74 children aged between 14 and 36 months, and mirroring extant longitudinal data for mirror self‐recognition, our results suggest that increases in self‐reflection are longitudinally related to developments in pretend play, prosocial behaviour, imitation and declarative pointing. However, although baseline self‐reflection was statistically predictive of children's prosocial behaviour at follow‐up, no strong developmental predictor of self‐reflection emerged. We conclude that more longitudinal research, moving beyond or supplementing mirror self‐recognition, is needed to identify the cognitive and social precursors of self‐reflection. Nevertheless, growth in ‘moral’ behaviour emerges as a significant developmental consequence of this capacity in a western sample. Further research is needed to explore cultural variability in developmental pathways to and from self‐reflection.

中文翻译：

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我是谁？对多维自我的纵向调查


采用自我识别的镜像标记测试的横断面研究主导了专注于儿童自我反思发展的研究。然而，镜像标记测试可能无法捕捉到自我作为社会客体的复杂性，自我反思的发展前因和后果在很大程度上仍然是未知的。在这里，我们概述了现有的镜像自我识别纵向数据，并展示了我们自己基于儿童自我发展的多维父母报告测量的纵向发现。提供了 74 名 14 至 36 个月大的儿童在 3 个月内的发展快照，并反映了现有的纵向数据以进行镜像自我识别，我们的结果表明，自我反省的增加与假装游戏、亲社会行为、模仿和陈述性指向的发展纵向相关。然而，尽管基线自我反省在随访时对儿童的亲社会行为有统计学预测作用，但没有出现强有力的自我反省发展预测因子。我们得出的结论是，需要更多的纵向研究，超越或补充镜像自我识别，以确定自我反思的认知和社会前兆。然而，在西方样本中，“道德”行为的增长是这种能力的重要发展结果。需要进一步的研究来探索自我反思和自我反思的发展途径的文化差异。