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Young children enforce social norms selectively depending on the violator's group affiliation.

Publication ,  Journal Article
Schmidt, MFH; Rakoczy, H; Tomasello, M
Published in: Cognition
September 2012

To become cooperative members of their cultural groups, developing children must follow their group's social norms. But young children are not just blind norm followers, they are also active norm enforcers, for example, protesting and correcting when someone plays a conventional game the "wrong" way. In two studies, we asked whether young children enforce social norms on all people equally, or only on ingroup members who presumably know and respect the norm. We looked at both moral norms involving harm and conventional game norms involving rule violations. Three-year-old children actively protested violation of moral norms equally for ingroup and outgroup individuals, but they enforced conventional game norms for ingroup members only. Despite their ingroup favoritism, young children nevertheless hold ingroup members to standards whose violation they tolerate from outsiders.

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Published In

Cognition

DOI

EISSN

1873-7838

ISSN

0010-0277

Publication Date

September 2012

Volume

124

Issue

3

Start / End Page

325 / 333

Related Subject Headings

  • Urban Population
  • Social Identification
  • Social Environment
  • Social Behavior
  • Reproducibility of Results
  • Morals
  • Male
  • Humans
  • Group Processes
  • Female
 

Citation

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Schmidt, M. F. H., Rakoczy, H., & Tomasello, M. (2012). Young children enforce social norms selectively depending on the violator's group affiliation. Cognition, 124(3), 325–333. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2012.06.004
Schmidt, Marco F. H., Hannes Rakoczy, and Michael Tomasello. “Young children enforce social norms selectively depending on the violator's group affiliation.Cognition 124, no. 3 (September 2012): 325–33. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2012.06.004.
Schmidt MFH, Rakoczy H, Tomasello M. Young children enforce social norms selectively depending on the violator's group affiliation. Cognition. 2012 Sep;124(3):325–33.
Schmidt, Marco F. H., et al. “Young children enforce social norms selectively depending on the violator's group affiliation.Cognition, vol. 124, no. 3, Sept. 2012, pp. 325–33. Epmc, doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2012.06.004.
Schmidt MFH, Rakoczy H, Tomasello M. Young children enforce social norms selectively depending on the violator's group affiliation. Cognition. 2012 Sep;124(3):325–333.
Journal cover image

Published In

Cognition

DOI

EISSN

1873-7838

ISSN

0010-0277

Publication Date

September 2012

Volume

124

Issue

3

Start / End Page

325 / 333

Related Subject Headings

  • Urban Population
  • Social Identification
  • Social Environment
  • Social Behavior
  • Reproducibility of Results
  • Morals
  • Male
  • Humans
  • Group Processes
  • Female