Poster #199 - Overimitation decreases when Fairy Jane is watching

• In Event: 2-110 - Poster Session 07
  In Poster Session: PS 07 Section - Social Cognition

Integrative Statement

Recent work has shown that adults and children are more likely to be prosocial and adhere to social norms when they believe in a supernatural presence (Bering, McLeod, & Shackelford, 2005; Piazza, Bering, & Ingram, 2011; Shariff & Norenzayan, 2007). Previous work has shown that children are less likely to cheat when they believe in the presence of a supernatural agent (Princess Alice) compared to children that do not believe (Piazza et al., 2011). We examined whether supernatural presence (Fairy Jane) and natural presence (the director of a museum centre) influences a ritualized cleaning activity compared to when unsupervised. We predicted that children copy with more fidelity when they believe that Fairy Jane is real, and copy with more fidelity when they think the director might be watching, compared to when children are alone.
Four-to-9-year-old children (n=138) were recruited from a local science centre and summer science week. All children were brought into a quiet, private space. Children were assigned to one of three conditions: the ‘Director’, ‘Fairy Jane’ (FJ), or an ‘Unsupervised’ condition. Children were told that the researchers were interested in creativity and had two minutes to make something out of playdoh. Researchers then said that that it was important to clean up after the two minutes. For the ‘Director’ and ‘FJ’ conditions, we told children that: “the Director/FJ roams around the museum, but nobody can see her because she sneaks around. She might peek in. She thinks it’s really important to keep the table clean and she likes it cleaned in this special way.” Children were shown 10 different actions, some were practical (e.g., wiping down table), others were normative (e.g., throwing towel twice, tapping container). Following this instruction, children were left alone for two minutes to make something with playdoh. When the timer went off, children were reminded to clean up. A hidden camera recorded children’s movements. In the ‘unsupervised’ condition, children had the same instructions except were not told about anyone roaming the science centre. We calculated a ritual fidelity score out of 10 for each child.
Surprisingly, we found that children were more likely to copy actions when unsupervised (M=8.14), compared to children in the Director (M=7.36) or FJ conditions (M=6), F(2)=9.51, p< .001. We also created a code just for number of irrelevant actions copied (out of 4), and children were also more likely to copy in the unsupervised condition (M=3.58), compared to children in the Director (M=2.91) or FJ conditions (M=2.6), F(2)=5.57, p=.005. There were no differences in copying fidelity for children who believed in FJ or not, but children who believed in FJ were much more likely to say that none of the actions were silly than children who thought they actions were silly, χ²(4)=21.012, p < .001.
Unlike prior work, children did not copy with greater fidelity when being observed. We conclude that children who perceive being watched may be more aware of silly actions and exclude them. Perceived supernatural or natural presence may discourage adherence to actions in a novel ritual.

Authors

• Emily Rachel Reed Burdett, University of Oxford
  Presenting Author

• Yo Nakawake, Kyushu University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jonathan Jong, Coventry University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Harvey Whitehouse, University of Oxford
  Non-Presenting Author