Exploring selectivity in children’s knowledge transmission :|the effects of group affiliation and knowledge type

Abstract

A wealth of studies investigated factors guiding children’s decisions when learning from others, while less is known about factors that govern children’s decisions when they transfer knowledge to others. This research asked whether children would privilege ingroup members when informing others and if so, whether this tendency would be observed to similar degrees when transferring different kinds of information (social norms vs. moral norms). Five- and 6-year-old children were assigned to minimal groups on the basis of their color preference. Children were then introduced to two potential recipients differing in their group membership, and were asked to choose one or both of these recipients to teach social or moral norms. Later children were asked to rate how much they liked members of their own group and the other group. Results showed that children were more likely to choose ingroup members for teaching social norms, and they were more likely to choose both members when teaching moral norms. In both conditions, children gave higher liking ratings for members of their own group. Thus, while children displayed an overall ingroup preference indicated by their explicit liking ratings, their selectivity to inform ingroup members depended heavily on the type of information that was to be taught.