Children's Judgments of Others' Conformity and Non-Conformity

• In Event: Poster Session 04
  In Poster Session: PS 04 Topic - Social Cognition

Abstract

Young children often make negative judgements of actions that violate social norms, and this includes norms with no obvious practical or moral implications. However, little is known about how children make judgements about what individuals are generally like based on their decisions to comply with or reject such norms, and how these judgements differ as a function of age and culture. The present research addressed this issue among younger (4 to 6 years) and older (9 to 11 years) children in the U.S. and South Korea (total N=440). Results showed that overall, conformers were viewed more favorably than nonconformers, but that there were also effects of age and culture. With age, conformers tended to be viewed less positively and nonconformers tended to be viewed less negatively. Nonconformers also tended to be viewed more negatively in South Korea. There were also differences as a function of the specific forms of social evaluation in question. For example, when judging intelligence, unlike other characteristics, there was a culture-specific pattern of change in which with age Korean children increasingly viewed nonconformists as less intelligent and U.S. children showed the reverse pattern.

Authors

• Sohee Ahn, University of California - San Diego
  Presenting Author

• Jamie Amemiya, University of California - San Diego
  Non-Presenting Author

• Gail D Heyman, University of California - San Diego
  Non-Presenting Author