Humans in every society find themselves in social hierarchies, but there is more than one way to attain social rank. Sometimes people attain rank through force—by being stronger or more aggressive than others. Other times, people attain rank by providing benefits such as protection or resources to others. The present studies asked whether children ages 4 to 8 expect the behaviors of high-ranking and low-ranking people reflect these ways of attaining rank. In Studies 1 and 2 (n = 344), children heard stories about social groups that consisted of a leader and three subordinates. Then the children were told about an action, and they guessed who had done it—the leader or a subordinate. When asked who pushed someone down, most older children guessed that a subordinate had done the pushing, while younger children seemed to consider leaders and subordinates about equally likely to push someone. When asked who kicked out a hostile intruder, children of all ages chose the leader more often than a subordinate. Study 3 (n = 216) tested whether children expect leaders to put themselves in harm’s way to protect subordinates and to be actively prosocial. Here, children in both age groups did not think leaders would put themselves in harm’s way to protect subordinates and thought the leader was less likely than a subordinate to perform prosocial actions such as helping someone up or sharing a cookie. It appears that children see leaders as providing certain benefits (such as expelling hostile intruders), but they don’t necessarily expect leaders to be more prosocial than other people overall.
Humans quickly and automatically evaluate others. We evaluate others on many dimensions, but two of the most basic are social rank and prosociality. Infants as young as six months evaluate others based on prosociality, liking helpers to hinderers. Infants also recognize cues of social rank. But how do infants feel about high- and low-ranking individuals? Recent studies have shown that toddlers ages 21 to 31 months prefer high-ranking individuals to low-ranking individuals. The present study asks this question about younger infants. In this series of nine experiments, infants ages 10 to 16 months watched puppet shows featuring two puppets with conflicting goals. In four experiments, we found that unlike toddlers, infants prefer (reach for) puppets who yield to another individual.
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