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Young children conform more to norms than to preferences

As members of cultural groups, humans continually adhere to social norms and conventions. Researchers have hypothesized that even young children are motivated to act conventionally, but support for this hypothesis has been indirect and open to other interpretations. To further test this hypothesis,...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Li, Leon, Britvan, Bari, Tomasello, Michael
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8153413/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34038420
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251228
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author Li, Leon
Britvan, Bari
Tomasello, Michael
author_facet Li, Leon
Britvan, Bari
Tomasello, Michael
author_sort Li, Leon
collection PubMed
description As members of cultural groups, humans continually adhere to social norms and conventions. Researchers have hypothesized that even young children are motivated to act conventionally, but support for this hypothesis has been indirect and open to other interpretations. To further test this hypothesis, we invited 3.5-year-old children (N = 104) to help set up items for a tea party. Children first indicated which items they preferred but then heard an informant (either an adult or another child) endorse other items in terms of either conventional norms or personal preferences. Children conformed (i.e., overrode their own preference to follow the endorsement) more when the endorsements were framed as norms than when they were framed as preferences, and this was the case whether the informant was an adult or another child. The priority of norms even when stated by another child opposes the interpretation that children only conformed in deference to adult authority. These findings suggest that children are motivated to act conventionally, possibly as an adaptation for living in cultural groups.
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spelling pubmed-81534132021-06-07 Young children conform more to norms than to preferences Li, Leon Britvan, Bari Tomasello, Michael PLoS One Research Article As members of cultural groups, humans continually adhere to social norms and conventions. Researchers have hypothesized that even young children are motivated to act conventionally, but support for this hypothesis has been indirect and open to other interpretations. To further test this hypothesis, we invited 3.5-year-old children (N = 104) to help set up items for a tea party. Children first indicated which items they preferred but then heard an informant (either an adult or another child) endorse other items in terms of either conventional norms or personal preferences. Children conformed (i.e., overrode their own preference to follow the endorsement) more when the endorsements were framed as norms than when they were framed as preferences, and this was the case whether the informant was an adult or another child. The priority of norms even when stated by another child opposes the interpretation that children only conformed in deference to adult authority. These findings suggest that children are motivated to act conventionally, possibly as an adaptation for living in cultural groups. Public Library of Science 2021-05-26 /pmc/articles/PMC8153413/ /pubmed/34038420 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251228 Text en © 2021 Li et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Li, Leon
Britvan, Bari
Tomasello, Michael
Young children conform more to norms than to preferences
title Young children conform more to norms than to preferences
title_full Young children conform more to norms than to preferences
title_fullStr Young children conform more to norms than to preferences
title_full_unstemmed Young children conform more to norms than to preferences
title_short Young children conform more to norms than to preferences
title_sort young children conform more to norms than to preferences
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8153413/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34038420
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251228
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