Condemned or Valued: Children Evaluate Nonconformity Based on Perceived Intergroup Attitudes

• In Event: Invisible but Powerful: Children’s Social and Moral Reasoning Shapes and Mitigates Intergroup Power Imbalances

Abstract

From an early age, children disapprove of people who do not conform to ingroup norms (e.g., Roberts et al., 2017; 2019; 2020), despite that nonconformity sometimes can be beneficial for society and individuals. Why do children disapprove of nonconformity? Across three pre-registered studies (total N = 257), we considered two competing possibilities among 4-9-year-old children: nonconformity behavior impairs the cohesiveness of one’s group (cohesion account), or nonconformity signals more positivity toward outgroup than toward ingroup (intergroup stance account), to shed light on potential mechanisms underlying children’s social disapproval of nonconformity.

Study 1 examined children’s default inferences about conformists’ and nonconformists’ intergroup attitudes. We introduced four novel group norms (e.g., food, language, toy, music), as well as conforming individuals and four nonconforming individuals. Children indicated whether the target behavior was ok or not-ok (disapproval question), and whether the target individual likes or dislikes the ingroup (ingroup positivity question) and the outgroup (outgroup positivity question). We found that children disapproved of nonconformity more than conformity, and they inferred nonconformists to like outgroups (and dislike ingroups) more than conformists did, Figure 1. Children’s inference about how much the nonconformists disliked ingroups predicted their disapproval of nonconformity (B = -0.65, SE = 0.19, z -= 3.43, p = .002, 95% CI = [-1.03, -0.26]), suggesting perceived intergroup attitudes played a role in disapproval of nonconformity.

Study 2 experimentally manipulated the nonconformists’ intergroup attitudes, such that 4-6-year-old children were randomly assigned to either hear the nonconformist was positive toward the ingroup (ingroup positivity condition) or the outgroup (outgroup positivity condition). We found that children disapproved of nonconformity less when it was motivated by a positive stance toward the ingroup rather than the outgroup (B = 1.11, SE = 0.53, z = 2.11 , p = .035, 95% CI = [0.15, 2.44]). Binomial tests indicated that disapproval was above chance in the outgroup positivity condition (M = 0.66, p = .027, d = 0.40) but at chance in the ingroup positivity condition (M = 0.50, p = 1.00, d = 0.01). The results further suggest perceived intergroup attitudes contribute to children’s disapproval of nonconformity.

Study 3 explored how children evaluate nonconformists who held an inclusive (rathern than zero-sum) intergroup attitude to bring ingroup and outgroup together. We found that children evaluated the inclusive nonconformist more positively than nonconformists who had no clear intergroup attitudes or who were only positive toward the ingroup or the outgroup (Study 3a), Figure 2. Children even evaluated inclusive nonconformists more positively than conformists who were positive toward the ingroup (Study 3b).

Taken together, our findings reveal that perceived intergroup attitudes play an important role in children’s evaluations of nonconformity. The findings illuminate one psychological mechanism for why children disapprove of nonconformity, and more importantly, when it is good to go against the flow and be ourselves.

Authors

• Fan Yang, University of Chicago
  Presenting Author

• Steven Othello Roberts, Stanford University