Cargando…
Intuitive Sociology: Children Recognize Decision-Making Structures and Prefer Groups With Less-Concentrated Power
From an early age, children recognize that people belong to social groups. However, not all groups are structured in the same way. The current study asked whether children recognize and distinguish among different decision-making structures. If so, do they prefer some decision-making structures over...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MIT Press
2022
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9692051/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36439067 http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/opmi_a_00053 |
_version_ | 1784837174052519936 |
---|---|
author | Thomas, Ashley J. Mitchell, Vivian Sumner, Emily Terrizzi, Brandon F. Piff, Paul K. Sarnecka, Barbara W. |
author_facet | Thomas, Ashley J. Mitchell, Vivian Sumner, Emily Terrizzi, Brandon F. Piff, Paul K. Sarnecka, Barbara W. |
author_sort | Thomas, Ashley J. |
collection | PubMed |
description | From an early age, children recognize that people belong to social groups. However, not all groups are structured in the same way. The current study asked whether children recognize and distinguish among different decision-making structures. If so, do they prefer some decision-making structures over others? In these studies, children were told stories about two groups that went camping. In the hierarchical group, one character made all the decisions; in the egalitarian group, each group member made one decision. Without being given explicit information about the group’s structures, 6- to 8-year-old children, but not 4- and 5-year-old children, recognized that the two groups had different decision-making structures and preferred to interact with the group where decision-making was shared. Children also inferred that a new member of the egalitarian group would be more generous than a new member of the hierarchical group. Thus, from an early age, children’s social reasoning includes the ability to compare social structures, which may be foundational for later complex political and moral reasoning. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9692051 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | MIT Press |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-96920512022-11-25 Intuitive Sociology: Children Recognize Decision-Making Structures and Prefer Groups With Less-Concentrated Power Thomas, Ashley J. Mitchell, Vivian Sumner, Emily Terrizzi, Brandon F. Piff, Paul K. Sarnecka, Barbara W. Open Mind (Camb) Research Article From an early age, children recognize that people belong to social groups. However, not all groups are structured in the same way. The current study asked whether children recognize and distinguish among different decision-making structures. If so, do they prefer some decision-making structures over others? In these studies, children were told stories about two groups that went camping. In the hierarchical group, one character made all the decisions; in the egalitarian group, each group member made one decision. Without being given explicit information about the group’s structures, 6- to 8-year-old children, but not 4- and 5-year-old children, recognized that the two groups had different decision-making structures and preferred to interact with the group where decision-making was shared. Children also inferred that a new member of the egalitarian group would be more generous than a new member of the hierarchical group. Thus, from an early age, children’s social reasoning includes the ability to compare social structures, which may be foundational for later complex political and moral reasoning. MIT Press 2022-07-01 /pmc/articles/PMC9692051/ /pubmed/36439067 http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/opmi_a_00053 Text en © 2022 Massachusetts Institute of Technology https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. For a full description of the license, please visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Thomas, Ashley J. Mitchell, Vivian Sumner, Emily Terrizzi, Brandon F. Piff, Paul K. Sarnecka, Barbara W. Intuitive Sociology: Children Recognize Decision-Making Structures and Prefer Groups With Less-Concentrated Power |
title | Intuitive Sociology: Children Recognize Decision-Making Structures and Prefer Groups With Less-Concentrated Power |
title_full | Intuitive Sociology: Children Recognize Decision-Making Structures and Prefer Groups With Less-Concentrated Power |
title_fullStr | Intuitive Sociology: Children Recognize Decision-Making Structures and Prefer Groups With Less-Concentrated Power |
title_full_unstemmed | Intuitive Sociology: Children Recognize Decision-Making Structures and Prefer Groups With Less-Concentrated Power |
title_short | Intuitive Sociology: Children Recognize Decision-Making Structures and Prefer Groups With Less-Concentrated Power |
title_sort | intuitive sociology: children recognize decision-making structures and prefer groups with less-concentrated power |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9692051/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36439067 http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/opmi_a_00053 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT thomasashleyj intuitivesociologychildrenrecognizedecisionmakingstructuresandprefergroupswithlessconcentratedpower AT mitchellvivian intuitivesociologychildrenrecognizedecisionmakingstructuresandprefergroupswithlessconcentratedpower AT sumneremily intuitivesociologychildrenrecognizedecisionmakingstructuresandprefergroupswithlessconcentratedpower AT terrizzibrandonf intuitivesociologychildrenrecognizedecisionmakingstructuresandprefergroupswithlessconcentratedpower AT piffpaulk intuitivesociologychildrenrecognizedecisionmakingstructuresandprefergroupswithlessconcentratedpower AT sarneckabarbaraw intuitivesociologychildrenrecognizedecisionmakingstructuresandprefergroupswithlessconcentratedpower |