Developmental patterns in the understanding of social and physical transitivity

Transitive inferences using both a linear dimension (A is longer than B) and a nonlinear dimension (A and B are friends) were examined. In Study 1, 6- to 9-year-old children received two problems of each kind. Performance showed similar developmental progressions but nonsignificant correlations between the two tasks. Study 2 extended these results by modifying the linear transitivity problem and adding variation in both context and type of social relation. Children 7, 9, and 11 years of age were given problems requiring judgments about friendship and about nonfriends (children who were quarreling with each other) in two different social contexts. No correlations were found between social judgments and judgments concerning length. Both type of relation and context influenced judgments about social relations. These results suggest that children possess two distinct strategies for making transitive judgments that correspond to the logical structure of the underlying relations.