Children intend to teach conventional but not moral norms selectively to ingroup members

Karadag, Didar and Soley, Gaye (2022) Children intend to teach conventional but not moral norms selectively to ingroup members. Developmental Psychology, 59 (3). pp. 567-578. ISSN 0012-1649

Abstract

Several studies have investigated factors guiding children’s decisions when learning from others, although less is known about factors that govern children’s decisions when they transfer knowledge to others. Here we asked whether children would privilege ingroup members when teaching and, if so, whether this tendency would persist when transferring different kinds of information (conventional norms vs. moral norms). In Experiment 1 (N = 24), we first replicated ingroup preference based on minimal group membership with 5 and 6-year-old Turkish children. In Experiment 2 (N = 64), we examined whether children would consider group membership and the type of knowledge to be transferred in their teaching intentions. Children were introduced to two ignorant targets differing in their group membership and were asked to choose one or both of these targets to teach conventional or moral norms. Children were more likely to choose ingroup members for teaching conventional norms and both members when teaching moral norms. Further, this trend was particularly evident among girls.