Explanations for norm violations affect preschoolers’ judgments of norm violators.

Abstract

Preschoolers commonly interpret how a group is as evidence for how individual group members should be—often leading to emphatic disapproval of norm violations (i.e., descriptive-to-prescriptive reasoning). The present research suggests that this tendency is shaped by how preschoolers explain group norm violations. In Study 1, preschoolers held norm violators accountable for their actions (e.g., they evaluated them as bad and withheld resources from them), suggesting that they construed norm violations as internally motivated and avoidable acts deserving of blame. In Study 2, preschoolers were most disapproving of those who violated norms because of preferences (e.g., because they liked to), less disapproving of those who did so because of traits (e.g., because of an aversion), and least disapproving of those who did so because of situations (e.g., because of an external constraint), suggesting that explanations for norm violations affect preschoolers’ judgments of norm violators. Thus, similar to a judge’s sentence or a jury’s verdict, preschoolers’ reasoning about the (mis)behavior of others is affected by why the behavior occurred.

Testing the limits of structural thinking about gender

“…One thought-provoking finding in Study 2 is that although children showed the effect of structural framing in their reasoning and evaluations (similar to e.g. Hussak & Cimpian, 2015;Van Wye et al, 2020, in which children were explicitly provided with different types of explanations), they still did not choose non-conforming peers over conforming ones as playmates. This finding suggests that merely inducing structural thinking might not be enough to mitigate children's behavioral sanctioning (or discrimination) of non-conforming peers, possibly because behavioral consequences are particularly hard to mitigate (see also Yang & Dunham, 2019).…”

“…Besides evaluations, Study 2 also investigates children's behavioral intentions (whether they choose to affiliate with non-conforming peers); these two critical attitudinal and behavioral choice measures probe the potential consequences of structural vs. non-structural reasoning. Unlike most past work on this topic that either did not probe the consequences of structural reasoning (Vasilyeva et al, 2018) or only probed evaluative judgments (Dunlea & Heiphetz, in press;Peretz-Lange et al, 2021;Van Wye et al, 2020), our work examined both evaluative judgments and behavioral intentions, providing a test of the effects of structural cues on a wider range of outcomes. As stated above, our goal is to test whether structural reasoning is impactful on attitudes and behavioral intentions even when preexisting beliefs are strong, as in many cases outside of laboratory settings where researchers and practitioners seek to reduce the negative consequences of stereotyping.…”

“…If so, promoting structural reasoning could lead to promising social changes. Indeed, there is some evidence for this in some other domain: children rate norm violations and incarcerations more positively when they are caused by situations and societal factors rather than traits or behaviors (Dunlea & Heiphetz, in press;Van Wye et al, 2020), and children think inequality is more unfair when it is caused by gender discrimination or other external constraints than when it is caused by difference in merit (Hussak & Cimpian, 2015;Rizzo et al, 2018;Rizzo & Killen, 2020). These studies together suggest that structural reasoning (if successfully induced) influences children's reasoning and evaluations of others in a positive way-reducing negativity toward norm violators and promoting fairness.…”

“…However, being able to endorse structural reasoning about novel behaviors that were experimentally created does not necessarily guarantee an equivalent ability to think about familiar behaviors that exist outside of a lab context in a structural way. We argue that this is an important consideration given how much past work has employed novel behaviors (see also Peretz-Lange et al, 2021;Van Wye et al, 2020). Notably, many familiar gendered behaviors are already entrenched as stereotypes (e.g., boys don't cry, girls play with dolls), and may already pull for salient internal or essentialist explanations (e.g., girls play with dolls because girls have a caring nature).…”

Language shapes children’s attitudes: Consequences of internal, behavioral, and societal information in punitive and nonpunitive contexts.

“…Broadly, internal information focuses on causes residing within an individual. Information about internal causes can either focus on temporary properties—including mental and emotional states, desires, preferences, and whims—or stable properties such as genetics, traits, and “essences.” Although internal properties can be temporary or stable, relatively more studies have focused on the consequences of attributing human characteristics to stable (e.g., Heiphetz, 2019; Hussak & Cimpian, 2018; Mandalaywala et al, 2018, 2019; Pauker et al, 2010, 2016; Rhodes et al, 2018), versus temporary (e.g., Van Wye et al, 2020), internal causes. To build on prior work in this area, we also focused on the ramifications of providing people with information about stable internal causes for social phenomena.…”