Infants’ and Young Children's Imitation of Linguistic In‐Group and Out‐Group Informants

Abstract

Although children can use social categories to intelligently select informants, children’s preference for in-group informants has not been consistently demonstrated across age and context. This research clarifies the extent to which children use social categories to guide learning by presenting participants with a live or video-recorded action demonstration by a linguistic in-group and/or out-group model. Participants’ (N = 104) propensity to imitate these actions was assessed. Nineteen-month-olds did not selectively imitate the actions of the in-group model in live contexts, though in-group preferences were found after watching the demonstration on video. Three-year-olds selectively imitated the actions demonstrated by the in-group member regardless of context. These results indicate that in-group preferences have a more nuanced effect on social learning than previous research has indicated.

Neighborhood linguistic diversity predicts infants’ social learning

“…A number of studies have shown that infants and young children resist information provided by foreign or foreign-accented speakers (Buttelmann et al, 2013; Howard, Henderson, & Woodward, 2014; Howard et al, in press; Kinzler et al, 2011). The current findings suggest that this bias is modulated by neighborhood experience during infancy.…”

“…Data were drawn from four experiments investigating 19-month-old infants' imitation of native- versus foreign-language speakers (Howard et al, in press; Howard, Henderson, & Woodward, 2014). Participants were full-term 19-month-old infants from English-speaking monolingual households in the Washington D.C. and Chicago metro areas.…”

“…After a brief delay, infants were allowed to act on each toy. Video-recordings of the session were coded for the number of manner actions infants imitated from the Spanish and English presenters by a research assistant who was unaware of the infants' experimental condition (for detailed methods, see Howard et al, in press; Howard, Henderson, & Woodward, 2014). Rates of imitation are presented as the number of manner English or Spanish actions imitated out of all toy sets administered.…”

“…Recent findings indicate that infants and young children are discriminating social learners- they resist attending to and taking information from foreign or foreign-accented speakers (Buttelmann, Zmyj, Daum, & Carpenter, 2013; Howard, Henderson, Carrazza & Woodward, in press; Howard, Henderson, & Woodward, 2014; Kinzler, Corriveau, & Harris, 2011; Kinzler, Dupoux, & Spelke, 2007). Thus, from early in life, infants and young children appear to form expectations about the kinds of people that they should learn from and imitate.…”

“…The 4 experiments were drawn from two sets of studies that examined age and medium effects on infants' willingness to imitate informants who spoke their own native language (English) versus a foreign language (Spanish) (Howard et al, in press; Howard, Henderson, & Woodward, 2014). These studies found that infants and young children resisted foreign-speaking informants in some cases, but also found that, when presented with a live (rather than video) informant, 19-month-old infants were equally likely to imitate the actions of Spanish- and English-speaking experimenters.…”