The Effects of Minimal Group Membership on Young Preschoolers’ Social Preferences, Estimates of Similarity, and Behavioral Attribution
The Effects of Minimal Group Membership on Young Preschoolers’ Social Preferences, Estimates of Similarity, and Behavioral Attribution
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DOI：
10.1525/collabra.44
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发表时间：
2016-07
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
N. Richter;Harriet Over;Yarrow Dunham
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
N. Richter;Harriet Over;Yarrow Dunham
我们调查幼儿对最小群体成员的敏感性。先前的研究表明，儿童在5到6岁之前不会对群体成员的最小提示表现出敏感性，这有助于声称这是群体间认知和行为发展的重要转变。在这项研究中，我们调查了甚至更小的孩子是否对群体成员的最小线索敏感。随机分配到两个颜色组中的任意一个，在3岁和4岁的研究参与者中创造了一个临时的，视觉上显著的最小群体成员。使用明确的测量方法，我们测试了儿童在做出社会判断时是否更喜欢最小的群体成员。我们发现，在不了解这两组的情况下，儿童对内组目标的喜爱程度高于外组目标。此外，孩子们估计群体内的成员会分享他们的偏好。我们的研究结果表明，从发育早期开始，人类就会根据最小的社会相似性线索来评估未知的他人，而对群体边界的感知可能是陌生人社会分类的基础。
We investigate young children’s sensitivity to minimal group membership. Previous research has suggested that children do not show sensitivity to minimal cues to group membership until the age of five to six, contributing to claims that this is an important transition in the development of intergroup cognition and behavior. In this study, we investigated whether even younger children are sensitive to minimal cues to group membership. Random assignment to one of either of two color groups created a temporary, visually salient minimal group membership in 3 and 4-year-old study participants. Using explicit measures, we tested whether children preferred minimal group members when making social judgments. We find that, in the absence of any knowledge regarding the two groups, children expressed greater liking for ingroup than outgroup targets. Moreover, children estimated that ingroup members would share their preferences. Our findings demonstrate that from early in development, humans assess unknown others on the basis of minimal cues to social similarity and that the perception of group boundaries potentially underlies social assortment in strangers.