Skip to main content
Journal cover image

Just teasing! - Infants' and toddlers' understanding of teasing interactions and its effect on social bonding.

Publication ,  Journal Article
Colle, L; Grosse, G; Behne, T; Tomasello, M
Published in: Cognition
February 2023

The current study investigates infants' and toddlers' understanding of teasing interactions and its effect on subsequent social interactions. Teasing is a special kind of social interaction due to its dual nature: It consists of a slightly provocative contingent action accompanied by positive ostensive emotional cues. Teasing thus presents an especially interesting test case to inform us about young children's abilities to deal with complex social intentions. In a first experiment, we looked at 9-, 12-, and 18-month-old infants' ability to understand and differentiate a teasing intention from a trying intention and a refuse intention. We found that by 12 months of age, infants react differently (gaze, reach) and by 18 months they smile more in reaction to the Tease condition. In the second experiment, we tested 13-, 20- and 30-month-old children in closely matched purely playful and teasing situations. We also investigated potential social effects of teasing interactions on a subsequent affiliation sequence. Twenty- and 30-month-old children smile more in the Teasing than in the Play condition. For the 30-month-old toddlers, additionally, number of laughs is much higher in the Tease than in the Play condition. No effect on affiliation could be found. Thus, from very early in development, infants and toddlers are able to differentiate teasing from superficially similar but serious behavior and from around 18 months of age they enjoy it more. Infants and toddlers are able to process a complex social intention like teasing. Findings are discussed regarding infant and toddler intention understanding abilities.

Duke Scholars

Altmetric Attention Stats
Dimensions Citation Stats

Published In

Cognition

DOI

EISSN

1873-7838

ISSN

0010-0277

Publication Date

February 2023

Volume

231

Start / End Page

105314

Related Subject Headings

  • Intention
  • Infant
  • Humans
  • Experimental Psychology
  • Emotions
  • Cues
  • Child, Preschool
  • 20 Language, Communication and Culture
  • 17 Psychology and Cognitive Sciences
  • 08 Information and Computing Sciences
 

Citation

APA
Chicago
ICMJE
MLA
NLM
Colle, L., Grosse, G., Behne, T., & Tomasello, M. (2023). Just teasing! - Infants' and toddlers' understanding of teasing interactions and its effect on social bonding. Cognition, 231, 105314. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105314
Colle, Livia, Gerlind Grosse, Tanya Behne, and Michael Tomasello. “Just teasing! - Infants' and toddlers' understanding of teasing interactions and its effect on social bonding.Cognition 231 (February 2023): 105314. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105314.
Colle, Livia, et al. “Just teasing! - Infants' and toddlers' understanding of teasing interactions and its effect on social bonding.Cognition, vol. 231, Feb. 2023, p. 105314. Epmc, doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105314.
Journal cover image

Published In

Cognition

DOI

EISSN

1873-7838

ISSN

0010-0277

Publication Date

February 2023

Volume

231

Start / End Page

105314

Related Subject Headings

  • Intention
  • Infant
  • Humans
  • Experimental Psychology
  • Emotions
  • Cues
  • Child, Preschool
  • 20 Language, Communication and Culture
  • 17 Psychology and Cognitive Sciences
  • 08 Information and Computing Sciences