Misch, Antonia, Over, Harriet orcid.org/0000-0001-9461-043X and Carpenter, Malinda (2014) Stick with your group:Young children's attitudes about group loyalty. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. pp. 19-36. ISSN 0022-0965
Abstract
For adults, loyalty to the group is highly valued, yet little is known about how children evaluate loyalty. We investigated children’s attitudes about loyalty in a third-party context. In the first experiment, 4- and 5-year-olds watched a video of two groups competing. Two members of the losing group then spoke. The disloyal individual said she wanted to win and would therefore join the other group. The loyal individual said she also wanted to win, but would stay with her group. Children were then asked five forced-choice questions about these two individuals’ niceness, trustworthiness, morality, and deservingness of a reward. Five-year-olds preferred the loyal person across all questions; results for 4-year-olds were considerably weaker but in the same direction. The second experiment investigated the direction of the effect in 5-year-olds. In this experiment, children answered questions about either a loyal individual, a disloyal individual, or a neutral individual. Children rated both the loyal and the neutral individuals more positively than the disloyal individual across a number of measures. Thus, whereas disloyal behavior is evaluated unfavorably by children, loyal behavior is the expected norm. These results suggest that, at least from the age of five, children understand that belonging to a group entails certain commitments. This marks an important step in their own ability to negotiate belonging and become trustworthy and reliable members of their social groups.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2014 Elsevier. This is an author produced version of a paper accepted for publication in Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of York |
Academic Units: | The University of York > Faculty of Sciences (York) > Psychology (York) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL RESEARCH COUNCIL (ESRC) ES/K007602/1 |
Depositing User: | Pure (York) |
Date Deposited: | 01 Dec 2015 15:45 |
Last Modified: | 17 Feb 2025 00:07 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2014.02.008 |
Status: | Published |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1016/j.jecp.2014.02.008 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:80791 |
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