Emilie Jeanneret, Gökhan Gönül and Fabrice Clément
Affiliation: Cognitive Science Centre, University of Neuchâtel, Neuchâtel, Switzerland, Department of Psychology, Cankaya University, Ankara, Türkiye, Cognitive Science Centre, University of Neuchâtel, Neuchâtel, Switzerland
Category: Psychology
Keywords: affective social learning, social norms, emotions, rule acquisition
Date: Tuesday 2nd of September
Time: 17:30
Location: Room 232 (232)
View the full session: Affect
Social norms and rules shape human interactions from early childhood, guiding appropriate behavior within communities. While young children quickly acquire social norms, the cues underlying this learning remain unclear. Recent research suggests that emotional cues influence children’s behavior (Sorce et al., 1985) and play a role in social learning, particularly in how children interpret and adopt rules (Repacholi & Meltzoff, 2007). However, it remains uncertain to what extent emotions shape children's understanding of rule legitimacy and enforcement. Grounded in the affective social learning framework developed by (Dukes & Clément, 2019), this study examines how affective observation and social referencing contributes to the acquisition of social norms. This study examines whether children understand an appropriate rule in a specific context based on the emotional reactions of a rule-bearer (an authority figure enforcing the rule) and whether they apply this rule to a new agent. Additionally, we investigate whether the presence of a rule-bearer influences children’s adherence to newly introduced social norms. Children aged 3 to 5 years (N = 72) participated in the study. They were randomly assigned to one of two between-subject conditions: (1) Rule-Bearer Present (the authority figure remains present at the end of the video) or (2) Rule-Bearer Absent (the authority figure leaves the room). In the familiarization phase children were told a story about a child arriving in a new school, welcomed by its director (the rule-bearer). In both conditions, each child was shown a video where a child actor places objects into two different boxes. The rule-bearer reacts positively (smiling and producing a high-pitched approving vocalization, “hmmm”) when objects are placed in one box, and negatively (frowning and producing a low-pitched angry vocalization) when objects are placed in the other. The video ends with the child actor filling a bucket with objects. Following the rule introduction, in the test phase, children were asked in which box the child actor should pour the objects. At this point, in the rule-bearer present condition the rule bearer stays in the room while reading a book and in the rule-bearer absent condition the rule bearer leaves the room. Children were also asked to evaluate “the wrong box” in that situation. Their responses assessed their understanding and application of the rule. After the test phase, children got the generalization phase. In this phase, real downed-size objects and boxes, as well as a puppet were introduced. The puppet struggles to lift a bucket filled with objects. Children were asked to help the puppet pour the objects into the correct box, assessing their generalization of the rule to a new agent. Children selected the correct box significantly above chance level (binomial test, p = .009, 95% CI [0.54, 0.77], probability of success = 0.66), indicating that children can infer simple social rules merely based on the emotional reaction of an authority figure. Contrary to some findings in the literature, children were more likely to comply with the rule in the rule-bearer absent condition (71%) than in the rule-bearer present condition (61%), though the latter was not significantly different from chance (p = .243). Similar trends were observed when children identified the incorrect box within the context, they performed significantly above chance (p-value < 0.001). In the generalization phase, children continued to follow the rule significantly above chance (p = .009), namely, they generalized the simple social rule to a completely new agent and expected the novel agent to follow the rule. Also in the generalization phase, the rule was followed more often in the rule-bearer absent condition (74%) than in the rule-bearer present condition (58%), with only the former differing significantly from chance. Our results indicate that 3-to-5-year-old children not only use emotional reactions of others to regulate their behavior but also infer the social rule in that specific context and generalize the rule to a new agent. These findings also suggest that children internalize social rules even in the absence of an enforcing figure. The presence of an authority figure does not necessarily enhance compliance and may even reduce children’s independent adherence to norms. This highlights the role of intrinsic motivation and emotional cues in early social learning. We discuss our findings based on the affective social learning and deontic reasoning accounts.