Normative Social Role Concepts in Early Childhood

Abstract

The current studies (N = 255, children ages 4-5 and adults) explore patterns of age-related continuity and change in conceptual representations of social role categories (e.g., "scientist"). In Study 1, young children's judgments of category membership were shaped by both category labels and category-normative traits, and the two were dissociable, indicating that even young children's conceptual representations for some social categories have a "dual character." In Study 2, when labels and traits were contrasted, adults and children based their category-based induction decisions on category-normative traits rather than labels. Study 3 confirmed that children reason based on category-normative traits because they view them as an obligatory part of category membership. In contrast, adults in this study viewed the category-normative traits as informative on their own (not only as a cue to obligations). Implications for continuity and change in representations of social role categories will be discussed.

Keywords: Concepts and categories; Conceptual development; Deontic; Dual character; Normativity.

Fig. 1.

Probabilities with Wald 95% confidence intervals of responding that characters are “real, deep down” category members, by labels (category, non-category) and category-normative traits (present, absent). Large shapes represent group means, small lines show average responses per participant.

Fig. 2.

Procedure for the test condition in Study 2. Participants first met a puppet named Daxy and were told that Daxy speaks puppet language. Then, they heard about 8 pairs of characters and made an induction decision about each. In the test condition, the character who had a category label did not have a category-normative trait, and the character who did not have a category label displayed category-normative trait. In the control condition, one character had both the label and the category-normative trait, and the other had neither. Daxy then described each character using a novel word, and participants made an induction decision about which an unseen category member would be like. Order of descriptions, name-description pairings, and novel trait descriptions were counterbalanced between participants.

Fig. 3.

Probabilities with Wald 95% confidence intervals of selecting characters with category-normative traits, by age group and condition, Study 2. Large shapes represent group means, small lines show average responses per participant.

Fig. 4.

Probabilities with Wald 95% confidence intervals of selecting characters with deontic properties on induction (left panel) and category membership (right panel) questions, by age group and condition, Study 3. Large shapes represent group means, small lines show average responses per participant.