Richter, Nadja, Over, Harriet orcid.org/0000-0001-9461-043X and Dunham, Yarrow (2016) The effects of minimal group membership on young preschoolers' social preferences, estimates of similarity, and behavioral attribution. Collabra. ISSN 2376-6832
Abstract
We investigate young children`s sensitivity to minimal group membership. Previous research has suggested that children do not show sensitivity to minimal cues to group membership until the age of five to six, contributing to claims that this is an important transition in the development of intergroup cognition and behavior. In this study, we investigated whether even younger children are sensitive to minimal cues to group membership. Random assignment to one of either of two color groups created a temporary, visually salient minimal group membership in 3 and 4-year-old study participants. Using explicit measures, we tested whether children preferred minimal group members when making social judgments. We find that, in the absence of any knowledge regarding the two groups, children expressed greater liking for in- group than outgroup targets. Moreover, children estimated that ingroup members would share their preferences. Our findings demonstrate that from early in development, humans assess unknown others on the basis of minimal cues to social similarity and that the perception of group boundaries potentially underlies social assortment in strangers.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2016 The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of York |
Academic Units: | The University of York > Faculty of Sciences (York) > Psychology (York) |
Depositing User: | Pure (York) |
Date Deposited: | 19 Oct 2016 09:20 |
Last Modified: | 20 Mar 2025 00:07 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1525/collabra.44 |
Status: | Published |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1525/collabra.44 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:105861 |
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