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Abstract How do children learn about the structure of the social world? We tested whether children would extract patterns from an agent's social choices to make inferences about multiple groups’ relative social standing. In Experiment 1, 4‐ to 6‐year‐old children (
N = 36; tested in Central New York) saw an agent and three groups (Group‐A ,Group‐B , andGroup‐C ) and observed the agent choose between pairs of individuals from different groups. Across pairwise selections, a pattern emerged: The agent chose individuals fromGroup‐A >Group‐B >Group‐C . Children tracked the agent's choices to predict thatGroup‐A was “most‐preferred” and the “leader” and thatGroup‐C was “least‐preferred” and the “helper.” In Experiments 2 and 3, we examined children's reasoning about a more complex pattern involving four groups and tested a wider age range. In Experiment 2, 5‐ to 10‐year‐old children (N = 98; tested in Central New York) used the agent's pattern of pairwise choices to infer that the agent likedGroup‐A >Group‐B >Group‐C >Group‐D and to make predictions about which groups were likely to be “leaders” and “helpers.” In Experiment 3, we found evidence for social specificity in children's reasoning: 5‐ to 10‐year‐old children (N = 96; from 26 US States) made inferences about groups’ relativesocial but notphysical power from the agent's pattern of affiliative choices across the four groups. These findings showcase a mechanism through which children may learn about societal‐level hierarchies through the patterns they observe over time in people's group‐based social choices.Research Highlights Children in our sample extracted patterns from an agent's positive social choices between multiple groups to reason about groups’ relative social standing.
Children used the pattern of an agent's positive social choices to guide their reasoning about which groups were likely to be “leaders” and “helpers” in a fictional town.
The pattern that emerged in an agent's choices of friends shaped children's thinking about groups’ relative
social but notphysical power.Children tracked social choices to reason about group‐based hierarchies at the individual level (which groups an agent prefers) and societal level (which groups are privileged).
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Abstract Understanding disease transmission is a complex problem highlighted by the COVID‐19 pandemic. These studies test whether 3‐ to 6‐year‐old children in the United States use information about social interactions to predict disease transmission. Before and during COVID‐19, children predicted illness would spread through close interactions. Older children outperformed younger children with no associations between task performance and pandemic experience. Children did not predict that being hungry or tired would similarly spread through close interactions. Participants include 196 three‐ to six‐year‐olds (53% girls, 47% boys; 68% White, 9% Black, 7% Asian, 6% Hispanic or Latinx), with medium‐sized effects (
d = .6,= .3). These findings suggest that thinking about social interaction supports young children's predictions about illness, with noted limitations regarding children's real‐world avoidance of disease‐spreading behaviors. -
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Abstract How does social information affect the perception of taste early in life? Does mere knowledge of other people's food preferences impact children's own experience when eating? In Experiment 1, 5‐ and 6‐year‐old children consumed more of a food described as popular with other children than a food that was described as unpopular with other children, even though the two foods were identical. In Experiment 2, children ate more of a food described as popular with children than a food described as popular with adults. Experiment 3 tested whether different perceptual experiences of otherwise identical foods contributed to the mechanisms underlying children's consumption. After sampling both endpoints of a sweet‐to‐sour range (applesauce with 0
mL or 5mL of lemon juice added), children were asked to taste and categorize applesauce samples with varying amounts of lemon juice added. When classifying ambiguous samples that were near the midpoint of the range (2mL and 3mL ), children were more likely to categorize popular foods as sweet as compared to unpopular foods. Together, these findings provide evidence that social information plays a powerful role in guiding children's consumption and perception of foods. Broader links to the sociality of food selection are discussed.
