Children's use of pragmatic inference to learn about the social world

Young children often endorse stereotypes-such as "girls are bad at math." We explore one mechanism through which these beliefs may be transmitted: via pragmatic inference. Specifically, we ask whether preschoolers and adults can learn about an unmentioned social group from what is said about another group, and if this inferential process is sensitive to the context of the utterance. Sixty-three- to five-year-old children and fifty-five adults were introduced to two novel social groups-Stripeys and Dotties-and witnessed a speaker praising abilities of one group (e.g., "the Stripeys are good at building chairs"). To examine the effect of context, we compared situations where the speaker was knowledgeable about the abilities of both groups, and had been queried about the performance of both groups (broad context), versus situations where the speaker was only knowledgeable about one group and was only asked about that group (narrow context). Both preschoolers and adults were sensitive to context: they were more likely to infer that the group not mentioned by the speaker was relatively unskilled, and were more confident about it, in the broad context condition. Our work integrates research in language development and social cognitive development and demonstrates that even young children can "read between the lines," utilizing subtle contextual cues to pick up negative evaluative messages about social groups even from statements that ostensibly do not mention them at all. HIGHLIGHTS: After hearing a speaker praise one group's skill, preschoolers and adults infer that an unmentioned group is relatively less skilled across a range of measures. These inferences are context-sensitive and are stronger when the speaker is knowledgeable of and asked about both groups' skill level. These results shed light on how children may indirectly learn negative stereotypes, especially ones that adults are unlikely to state explicitly. This work extends previous research on children's developing pragmatic ability, as well as their ability to learn about the social world from language.