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Young children use pedagogical cues to modulate the strength of normative inferences.

Publication ,  Journal Article
Butler, LP; Schmidt, MFH; Bürgel, J; Tomasello, M
Published in: The British journal of developmental psychology
November 2015

Young children understand pedagogical demonstrations as conveying generic, kind-relevant information. But, in some contexts, they also see almost any confident, intentional action on a novel artefact as normative and thus generic, regardless of whether this action was pedagogically demonstrated for them. Thus, although pedagogy may not be necessary for inferences to the generic, it may nevertheless be sufficient to produce inductive inferences on which the child relies more strongly. This study addresses this tension by bridging the literature on normative reasoning with that on social learning and inductive inference. Three-year-old children learned about a novel artefact from either a pedagogical or non-pedagogical demonstration, and then, a series of new actors acted on that artefact in novel ways. Although children protested normatively in both conditions (e.g., 'No, not like that'), they persisted longer in enforcing the learned norms in the face of repeated non-conformity by the new actors. This finding suggests that not all generic, normative inferences are created equal, but rather they depend - at least for their strength - on the nature of the acquisition process.

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Published In

The British journal of developmental psychology

DOI

EISSN

2044-835X

ISSN

0261-510X

Publication Date

November 2015

Volume

33

Issue

4

Start / End Page

476 / 488

Related Subject Headings

  • Thinking
  • Social Perception
  • Social Learning
  • Male
  • Humans
  • Female
  • Developmental & Child Psychology
  • Child, Preschool
  • Child Development
  • Child Behavior
 

Citation

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Butler, L. P., Schmidt, M. F. H., Bürgel, J., & Tomasello, M. (2015). Young children use pedagogical cues to modulate the strength of normative inferences. The British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 33(4), 476–488. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjdp.12108
Butler, Lucas P., Marco F. H. Schmidt, Jessica Bürgel, and Michael Tomasello. “Young children use pedagogical cues to modulate the strength of normative inferences.The British Journal of Developmental Psychology 33, no. 4 (November 2015): 476–88. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjdp.12108.
Butler LP, Schmidt MFH, Bürgel J, Tomasello M. Young children use pedagogical cues to modulate the strength of normative inferences. The British journal of developmental psychology. 2015 Nov;33(4):476–88.
Butler, Lucas P., et al. “Young children use pedagogical cues to modulate the strength of normative inferences.The British Journal of Developmental Psychology, vol. 33, no. 4, Nov. 2015, pp. 476–88. Epmc, doi:10.1111/bjdp.12108.
Butler LP, Schmidt MFH, Bürgel J, Tomasello M. Young children use pedagogical cues to modulate the strength of normative inferences. The British journal of developmental psychology. 2015 Nov;33(4):476–488.
Journal cover image

Published In

The British journal of developmental psychology

DOI

EISSN

2044-835X

ISSN

0261-510X

Publication Date

November 2015

Volume

33

Issue

4

Start / End Page

476 / 488

Related Subject Headings

  • Thinking
  • Social Perception
  • Social Learning
  • Male
  • Humans
  • Female
  • Developmental & Child Psychology
  • Child, Preschool
  • Child Development
  • Child Behavior