How preschoolers react to norm violations is associated with culture

Children across societies enforce conventional norms but in culturally variable ways

“…Some studies have found that young children actively enforce conventional norms by protesting, correcting others, or reminding them of the rules, even as uninvolved third parties (24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30)(31)(32). However, this research has been carried out exclusively with children from middle-class families in Europe and North America, and there exists, to date, no systematic cross-cultural study on conventional norm enforcement and its intercultural variability.…”

Emotions experienced during the shedding of the first primary tooth

“…Apart from the Tooth Fairy, which is of recent vintage, ancient folk customs and practices feature throwing the lost tooth to a mouse, to the sun, or into a fire . Based on the fact that diverse cultural parental norms evoke different responses in children, it is fair to expect variations in children's emotions depending on the significance the tooth shedding is granted by parental culture. Moreover, cultural differences in parent‐child interaction and parenting style exist, which, unrelated to specific cults and customs, may account for dissimilar responses.…”

Not all folk-economic beliefs are best understood through our ancestral past

“…Community members may be expected to do manual labor and still not be allowed to freely partake of the resources (such as coconuts or certain kinds of fish) on that land if it is the property of the chief. Similarly, cross-cultural developmental research shows a consistent pattern of rule learning in children in response to local norms instead of universal norms of fairness (Gampe & Daum 2018;House et al 2013). These learned norms reflect local ecological and social conditions, which may in turn influence folk-economic beliefs.…”