The role of shared knowledge in children's identification of norm violators' group affiliation

Abstract

Each cultural group has different social norms that their members are expected to follow. Past research suggests that children expect members of other groups (e.g., linguistic outgroup members) to be social norm violators. However, the underlying mechanisms of their expectations are not entirely clear. The goal of this research is to explore the role of children’s understanding of conventionality in selecting outgroup members as social norm violators. Three experiments were conducted with 5- and 6 year-olds to explore whether children expect rule violation behaviors from linguistic outgroup members because they perceive them as ignorant as opposed to knowledgeable rule violators. Results of Experiment 1 revealed that children expected outgroup members to violate conventional norms and novel norms to similar degrees. Results of Experiment 2 showed that when children were explicitly asked about ignorant rule violators, they tended to choose outgroup members. However, when they were asked about knowledgeable rule violators, they were equally likely to choose ingroup and outgroup members. Results of Experiment 3 further revealed that children infer that outgroup members are ignorant of social rules, and this tendency was apparent among boys and not among girls. Taken together, these results suggest that young children tend to attribute ignorance to outgroup members and this tendency might underlie their perception of outgroup members as rule violators.