What Makes Children Defy Majorities? The Role of Dissenters in Chinese and Spanish Preschoolers’ Social Judgments

Abstract

When many people say the same thing, the individual is more likely to endorse this information than when just a single person says the same. Yet, the influence of consensus information may be modulated by many personal, contextual and cultural variables. Here, we study the sensitivity of Chinese (N = 68) and Spanish (N = 82) preschoolers to consensus in social decision making contexts. Children faced two different types of peer-interaction events, which involved (1) uncertain or ambiguous scenarios open to interpretation (social interpretation context), and (2) explicit scenarios depicting the exclusion of a peer (moral judgment context). Children first observed a video in which a group of teachers offered their opinion about the events, and then they were asked to evaluate the information provided. Participants were assigned to two conditions that differed in the type of consensus: Unanimous majority (non-dissenter condition) and non-unanimous majority (dissenter condition). In the dissenter condition, we presented the conflicting opinions of three teachers vs. one teacher. In the non-dissenter condition, we presented the unanimous opinion of three teachers. The general results indicated that children’s sensitivity to consensus varies depending both on the degree of ambiguity of the social events and the presence or not of a dissenter: (1) Children were much more likely to endorse the majority view when they were uncertain (social interpretation context), than when they already had a clear interpretation of the situation (moral judgment context); (2) The presence of a dissenter resulted in a significant decrease in children’s confidence in majority. Interestingly, in the moral judgment context, Chinese and Spanish children differed in their willingness to defy a majority whose opinion run against their own. While Spanish children maintained their own criteria regardless of the type of condition, Chinese children did so when an “allied” dissenter was present (dissenter condition) but not when confronting a unanimous majority (non-dissenter condition). Tentatively, we suggest that this difference might be related to culture-specific patterns regarding children’s deference toward adults.

The Influence of Adult and Peer Role Models on Children’ and Adolescents’ Sharing Decisions

“…Of 4‐year‐olds, 40%–60% adapted their responses to those of the (incorrect) peer majority on visual and social‐conventional judgment tasks, despite knowing the correct solution (e.g., Haun & Tomasello, ; Kim, Chen, Smetana, & Greenberger, ). However, 60%–80% of preschoolers did not conform to a peer (or adult) majority when conformity contradicted a moral norm (Enesco, Sebastián‐Enesco, Guerrero, Quan, & Garijo, ; Engelmann, Herrmann, Rapp, & Tomasello, ).…”

Preschoolers’ Trust in Social Consensus Varies by Context: Conventional vs. Moral Domains

“…Other work has found that the role of the dissenter in social scenarios is related to the culture in which deference to the majori-anales de psicología, 2017, vol. 33, nº 1 (january) ty is explored (Enesco, Sebastián-Enesco, Guerrero, Quan, & Garijo, 2016). In a different line of results, some recent studies on other socio-conventional domains (i.e.…”

What makes children defy their peers? Chinese and Spanish preschoolers' decisions to trust (or not) peer consensus

“…In this type of context, the individual lacks information to assess or interpret a situation more fully. For example, Enesco, Sebastián‐Enesco, Guerrero, Quan, and Garijo () presented 4–6‐year olds a series of ambiguous peer interaction situations that could be interpreted in two different ways, either as an accident (e.g., the child fell off the swing) or as a malicious action (e.g., the child was pushed off the swing). Given these situations, the children were willing to trust the testimony of others in order to interpret what had happened.…”

“…However, the few studies carried out in cultures other than Anglo‐Saxon countries do not always confirm this general trend, and sometimes yield contrasting findings. For instance, Enesco et al () found that a majority of Chinese children accepted the criteria of a group of teachers who unanimously supported the exclusion of a peer (e.g., not letting a child play with the rest of the group) whereas Spanish children of the same age maintained their opposition to the exclusion, going against the teachers' unanimous opinion. However, interestingly, the children from both countries condemned the situation in the absence of testimonial information (Enesco et al, ).…”

“…For instance, Enesco et al () found that a majority of Chinese children accepted the criteria of a group of teachers who unanimously supported the exclusion of a peer (e.g., not letting a child play with the rest of the group) whereas Spanish children of the same age maintained their opposition to the exclusion, going against the teachers' unanimous opinion. However, interestingly, the children from both countries condemned the situation in the absence of testimonial information (Enesco et al, ). The authors suggested that the difference between the Spanish and Chinese children might be a result of culture‐specific patterns related to children's attitudes toward adults, with Chinese children being more likely to be deferential than their Spanish counterparts.…”