Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America.
Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany.
PLoS One. 2021 May 26;16(5):e0251228. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0251228. eCollection 2021.
As members of cultural groups, humans continually adhere to social norms and conventions. Researchers have hypothesized that even young children are motivated to act conventionally, but support for this hypothesis has been indirect and open to other interpretations. To further test this hypothesis, we invited 3.5-year-old children (N = 104) to help set up items for a tea party. Children first indicated which items they preferred but then heard an informant (either an adult or another child) endorse other items in terms of either conventional norms or personal preferences. Children conformed (i.e., overrode their own preference to follow the endorsement) more when the endorsements were framed as norms than when they were framed as preferences, and this was the case whether the informant was an adult or another child. The priority of norms even when stated by another child opposes the interpretation that children only conformed in deference to adult authority. These findings suggest that children are motivated to act conventionally, possibly as an adaptation for living in cultural groups.
作为文化群体的成员，人类不断遵守社会规范和习俗。研究人员假设，即使是幼儿也有按照常规行事的动机，但对这一假设的支持是间接的，并且存在其他解释。为了进一步检验这一假设，我们邀请了 3.5 岁的儿童（N=104）帮助为茶话会设置物品。孩子们首先表示他们更喜欢哪些物品，但随后听到一个信息提供者（无论是成年人还是另一个孩子）根据常规规范或个人喜好来认可其他物品。当认可被描述为规范而不是偏好时，孩子们的一致性（即，为了遵循认可而放弃自己的偏好）更高，无论是信息提供者是成年人还是另一个孩子。即使是另一个孩子陈述的规范也优先于这样一种解释，即孩子们只是为了尊重成人权威而顺从。这些发现表明，孩子们有按照常规行事的动机，这可能是适应生活在文化群体中的一种方式。
