The ontogenetic emergence of normativity: How action imitation relates to infants? norm enforcement

Essler, Samuel; Christner, Natalie; Becher, Tamara und Paulus, Markus (2022): The ontogenetic emergence of normativity: How action imitation relates to infants? norm enforcement. In: Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, Bd. 227, 105591

Abstract

Major developmental theories allot imitation a pivotal role in the cultural acquisition of social norms. Although there exists considerable evidence of young children's norm enforcement behavior, the ontogenetic emergence of normativity and the role of imitation is debated. Here, we assessed two pathways of how general imitation tendencies might relate to norm enforcement: The compliance path holds that young children's general imitation tendencies lead to displaying compliant behavior, which in turn predicts norm enforcement toward third parties. The internalization path suggests that young children's general imitation tendencies lead to an internal representation of normative rules. As children observe third parties' normative transgressions, a perceived discrepancy between internalized representation of the rule and observed behavior arises, which in turn triggers corrective action, that is, norm enforcement behavior. We assessed 18-month-olds' (N = 97) general imitation tendencies across four tasks, their compliance with maternal directives across two tasks, and their self-distress as well as protest behavior following normative transgressions. Results showed that (a) whereas imitation significantly predicted compliance behavior, compliance did not predict norm enforcement behavior, and that (b) imitation predicted selfdistress, which in turn predicted norm enforcement. These findings speak to internalization as one psychological basis of norm enforcement behavior and highlight the importance of imitation in the ontogenetic emergence of normativity.(c) 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecom-mons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

• Dokumententyp: Zeitschriftenartikel
• Fakultät: Psychologie und Pädagogik > Department Psychologie
• Themengebiete: 100 Philosophie und Psychologie > 150 Psychologie
• ISSN: 0022-0965
• Sprache: Englisch