2-169 - Exploring the Role of Context in Children's Normative Reasoning

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

One of the hallmarks of moving from infancy to early childhood is the expectation that children will recognize that in many social contexts, there is a way one ought to act. Across several studies, young children demonstrate such normative reasoning in their ability to quickly learn social rules and also in their tendency to enforce these rules on other people (Rakoczy, Warneken & Tomasello, 2008; Schmidt, Rakoczy & Tomasello, 2012). However, an equally critical (but previously overlooked) component of normative reasoning is the ability to be flexible when deciding when and whether to follow such rules. Does children’s tendency to follow and enforce norms depend on contextual factors and the availability of other prescriptions for action? The papers in this symposium outline new evidence from tasks involving artifact demonstration, collaborative learning, and prosocial giving, all of which consider the variables that affect the degree to which children follow and enforce social rules. Paper 1 investigates the strength of children’s normative inferences when functions of artifacts are demonstrated pedagogically for their benefit versus observed incidentally from a third party. Paper 2 explores how children’s rigidity in interpreting social rules depends on the context in which these rules were learned. Paper 3 discusses how children balance rules mandated by an external regulatory function (i.e., authority) with personal or social considerations about others, when determining whom to distribute resources to. Finally, an expert in early social cognition will discuss the implications these studies have for future research on children’s normative reasoning.

Sub Unit

• Social Cognition

Chair

• Anne Riggs, Univ of Wisconsin-Madison

Discussant

• Mark Alan Sabbagh, Queens University

Individual Presentations

• Young children use pedagogical cues to modulate the strength of normative inferences - Presenting Author: Lucas P Butler, Univ of Maryland College Park; Marco F. H. Schmidt, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology; Jessica Burgel, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology; Michael Tomasello, Max Planck Institute

• Bending the rules: Children’s interpretation of rules depends on the context in which rules were learned - Presenting Author: Anne Riggs, Univ of Wisconsin-Madison; Andrew Gilbert Young, University of Wisconsin, Madison

• Children’s distributive behavior when compliance conflicts with recipients’ preferences or group membership - Presenting Author: Avi Benozio, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology; Gil Diesendruck, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan