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Children's norm enforcement in their interactions with peers
Bahar Köymen1, Elena Lieven1,2, Denis A Engemann3,4
1Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
Child Development
|October 22, 2013
Summary
Children
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Social Psychology
- Linguistics
Background:
- Understanding how children learn and enforce social norms is crucial for developmental psychology.
- Peer interactions play a significant role in shaping children's social cognition and behavior.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how children aged 3 to 7 years negotiate social norms during peer interactions.
- To examine developmental differences in norm enforcement and understanding.
Main Methods:
- Two studies were conducted involving 96 pairs of children (3- and 5-year-olds in Study 1; 5- and 7-year-olds in Study 2).
- Children engaged in sorting tasks with either conflicting or identical instructions, and their norm negotiation strategies were analyzed.
- Linguistic analysis focused on grammatical constructions used to express norms.
Main Results:
- Three-year-olds were less selective in enforcing social norms compared to older children.
- Children across age groups, particularly younger ones, used objectifying grammatical constructions to describe norms.
- Evidence suggests a developmental shift towards more flexible norm understanding in the preschool years.
Conclusions:
- Children's ability to negotiate and understand social norms evolves during the preschool years.
- Linguistic strategies reflect developing conceptualizations of social rules.
- Peer interactions provide a context for the flexible application of social norms.
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