Similarity predicts liking in 3-year-old children

Abstract

a b s t r a c tTwo studies examined the influence of similarity on 3-year-old children's initial liking of their peers. Children were presented with pairs of childlike puppets who were either similar or dissimilar to them on a specified dimension and then were asked to choose one of the puppets to play with as a measure of liking. Children selected the puppet whose food preferences or physical appearance matched their own. Unpacking the physical appearance finding revealed that the stable similarity of hair color may influence liking more strongly than the transient similarity of shirt color. A second study showed that children also prefer to play with a peer who shares their toy preferences, yet importantly, show no bias toward a peer who is similar on an arbitrary dimension. The findings provide insight into the earliest development of peer relations in young children.

Young Children's Use of Trait Similarity Information to Make Inference of Others

“…When children were presented with a similarity condition where the similarity factor was arbitrary (e.g., sticker, mitten) and randomly assigned by an experimenter, 3-year olds and even 11.5-monthold infants did not show preference toward a similar puppet over a dissimilar puppet (Fawcett & Markson, 2010;Mahajan & Wynn, 2012). This result shows that young children do not consider every kind of similarity between them and others as an important factor for initial attraction.…”

“…In a study that examined the influence of similarity on initial attraction of 3-year-old children, Fawcett and Markson (2010) showed that 3-year-old children are attracted to peers (puppets) who have similar preference of food and toy as themselves. When children were shown two puppets with different food and toy selection, they chose a puppet that made similar choice as they did.…”

“…This age groups were chosen to be studied because this is when young children start to understand that trait provides sufficient information about others and use such information to make predictions of others. Also it has been clearly shown that at least by 3-years of age children understand their and other's preferences and show initial attraction toward others with similar preference (Fawcett & Markson, 2010). By looking at 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children's inference of other in peer selection using trait information, young children's perception of trait information in initial attraction toward other peers will be understood and shed light to when young children start to perceive trait information as an influential factor in peer attraction.…”

“…Three-year-old children have been found to prefer others who choose similar food, toy, and hair-color as themselves but among these similarities, toy was the most influential source of information that triggered initial attraction toward an unacquainted peer (Fawcett & Markson, 2010). Likewise, in the current study, 3-year-old children might have preferred to infer other's preference by using toy similarity information since toy might be more influential source of information than trait in initial attraction even for prosocial acts.…”

Scaffolding in Parenting With Respect to Cognitive and Social Development of Their Children.

“…Recently a study found that when the third-party interaction engaged the toddler or created a reciprocal social interaction with the speaker on the video, the toddlers at 24-months-old were able to learn novel words from video (O 'Doherty et al, 2011). Some of the other laboratory studies by exploring preschool children found that children prefer to interact with peers who have similar characteristics as themselves (Fawcett & Markson, 2009). They made interference and respond to the observable third-party conflicts by displaying pro-social behaviors more towards the puppet that was harmed (Vaish et al, 2011).…”