Strong and strategic conformity understanding by 3‐ and 5‐year‐old children

Abstract

'Strong conformity' corresponds to the public endorsement of majority opinions that are in blatant contradiction to one's own correct perceptual judgements of the situation. We tested strong conformity inference by 3- and 5-year-old children using a third-person perspective paradigm. Results show that at neither age, children spontaneously expect that an ostracized third-party individual who wants to affiliate with the majority group will show strong conformity. However, when questioned as to what the ostracized individual should do to befriend others, from 5 years of age children explicitly demonstrate that they construe strong conformity as a strategic means of social affiliation. Additional data suggest that strong and strategic conformity understanding from an observer's third-person perspective is linked to the passing of the language-mediated false belief theory of mind task, an index of children's emerging 'meta' ability to construe the mental state of others. Statement of contribution What is already known on this subject? 'Strong conformity' corresponds to the public endorsement of majority opinions that are in blatant contradiction to one's own correct perceptual judgements of the situation. Asch's (1956, Psychological Monographs: General and Applied, 70, 1) classic demonstration of strong conformity with adults has been replicated with preschool children: 3- to 4-year-olds manifest signs of strong conformity by reversing about thirty to forty per cent of the time their correct perceptual judgements to fit with contradictory statements held unanimously by other individuals (Corriveau & Harris, 2010, Developmental Psychology, 46, 437; Corriveau et al., 2013, Journal of Cognition and Culture, 13, 367; Haun & Tomasello, 2011, Child Development, 82, 1759). As for adults, strong conformity does not obliterate children's own private, accurate knowledge of the situation. It is in essence a public expression to fit the group and alleviate social dissonance. What does this study add? In three experiments, we explored the developmental emergence in the preschool years of strong conformity inference from a third-person perspective. Results show that by 5 years of age, and not earlier, children begin to construe strong conformity as a strategy that someone should use to gain social affiliation, even though they do not anticipate that a third-party individual would necessarily resort to such strategy. Additional data suggest that strong and strategic conformity understanding from an observer's third-person perspective is linked to the passing of the language-mediated false belief theory of mind task.

Dying for the group: Towards a general theory of extreme self-sacrifice

“…Typical development is indeed replete with relevant, more generalizable, and primordial facts compared with those used by Whitehouse in his extreme account. Developmental research tends to show that the first signs of identity fusion and the explicit sense of oneness with the group begins to become evident during preschool years (3-5 years), with the emergence of gender and racial biases and minimal group affiliation, including the early detection of and preference for higher economic status, as well as first evidence of strong and strategic conformity, from both a first-person and a third-person perspective (Cordonier et al 2017;Haun & Tomasello 2011;Nesdale 2008;Nesdale et al 2005;Shutts 2015;Shutts et al 2016). Resonating with Whitehouse's model of extreme self-sacrifice, children's early signs of identity fusion are compounded by an early propensity toward essentialism (Gelman 2003).…”

“…In children, peer pressure begins in the preschool years, with the emergence of strong and strategic conformity (Cordonier et al 2017). If strong and strategic conformity consists of the sophisticated expressions of the need to fuse with the group (BAN), infancy research shows that its source is located way upstream, namely, in the innate propensity to imitate and newborns' inclination to be emotionally contaminated by others (Rochat 2001).…”

Group conquers efficacy: Preschoolers’ imitation under conflict between minimal group membership and behavior efficacy

“…Interestingly, research concerning other social learning forms reported similar age differences, which indirectly confirmed our finding. For example, in a strong conformity task, 5-year-olds, not younger children, construed conformity as a strategy to win group acceptance [40]. Moreover, considering the research on overimitation, older children imitated more unnecessary behaviors than young children [41, 42].…”

Origins of social fusion

“…Typical development is indeed replete with relevant, more generalizable, and primordial facts compared with those used by Whitehouse in his extreme account. Developmental research tends to show that the first signs of identity fusion and the explicit sense of oneness with the group begins to become evident during preschool years (3–5 years), with the emergence of gender and racial biases and minimal group affiliation, including the early detection of and preference for higher economic status, as well as first evidence of strong and strategic conformity, from both a first-person and a third-person perspective (Cordonier et al 2017; Haun & Tomasello 2011; Nesdale 2008; Nesdale et al 2005; Shutts 2015; Shutts et al 2016). Resonating with Whitehouse's model of extreme self-sacrifice, children's early signs of identity fusion are compounded by an early propensity toward essentialism (Gelman 2003).…”

“…In children, peer pressure begins in the preschool years, with the emergence of strong and strategic conformity (Cordonier et al 2017). If strong and strategic conformity consists of the sophisticated expressions of the need to fuse with the group (BAN), infancy research shows that its source is located way upstream, namely, in the innate propensity to imitate and newborns’ inclination to be emotionally contaminated by others (Rochat 2001).…”