Kinzler Katherine D, Shutts Kristin, Dejesus Jasmine, Spelke Elizabeth S
Harvard University.
Soc Cogn. 2009 Aug 1;27(4):623-634. doi: 10.1521/soco.2009.27.4.623.
A series of experiments investigated the effect of speakers' language, accent, and race on children's social preferences. When presented with photographs and voice recordings of novel children, 5-year-old children chose to be friends with native speakers of their native language rather than foreign-language or foreign-accented speakers. These preferences were not exclusively due to the intelligibility of the speech, as children found the accented speech to be comprehensible, and did not make social distinctions between foreign-accented and foreign-language speakers. Finally, children chose same-race children as friends when the target children were silent, but they chose other-race children with a native accent when accent was pitted against race. A control experiment provided evidence that children's privileging of accent over race was not due to the relative familiarity of each dimension. The results, discussed in an evolutionary framework, suggest that children preferentially evaluate others along dimensions that distinguished social groups in prehistoric human societies.
一系列实验研究了说话者的语言、口音和种族对儿童社交偏好的影响。当向5岁儿童展示陌生儿童的照片和录音时，他们选择与母语为其母语的人做朋友，而不是与说外语或有外国口音的人做朋友。这些偏好并非完全归因于言语的清晰度，因为孩子们觉得有口音的言语是可以理解的，并且在有外国口音的人和说外语的人之间没有做出社交区分。最后，当目标儿童不说话时，孩子们选择同种族的儿童做朋友，但当口音与种族相冲突时，他们选择有本地口音的其他种族儿童做朋友。一项对照实验提供了证据，表明儿童对口音的偏好超过种族并非由于每个维度的相对熟悉程度。在进化框架下讨论的结果表明，儿童优先沿着在史前人类社会中区分社会群体的维度来评估他人。
