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Zhao M, Fong FTK, Whiten A, Nielsen M. Children's distinct drive to reproduce costly rituals. Child Dev 2024; 95:1161-1171. [PMID: 38108221 DOI: 10.1111/cdev.14061] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/30/2023] [Revised: 08/22/2023] [Accepted: 12/04/2023] [Indexed: 12/19/2023]
Abstract
Costly rituals are ubiquitous and adaptive. Yet, little is known about how children develop to acquire them. The current study examined children's imitation of costly rituals. Ninety-three 4-6 year olds (47 girls, 45% Oceanians, tested in 2022) were shown how to place tokens into a tube to earn stickers, using either a ritualistic or non-ritualistic costly action sequence. Children shown the ritualistic actions imitated faithfully at the expense of gaining stickers; conversely, those shown the non-ritualistic actions ignored them and obtained maximum reward. This highlights how preschool children are adept at and motivated to learn rituals, despite significant material cost. This study provides insights into the early development of cultural learning and the adaptive value of rituals in group cognition.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mingxuan Zhao
- Early Cognitive Development Centre, School of Psychology, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
| | - Frankie T K Fong
- Early Cognitive Development Centre, School of Psychology, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
- Department of Comparative Cultural Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
| | - Andrew Whiten
- School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, UK
| | - Mark Nielsen
- Early Cognitive Development Centre, School of Psychology, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
- Faculty of Humanities, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa
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Zhao M, Fong FTK, Whiten A, Nielsen M. Do children imitate even when it is costly? New insights from a novel task. BRITISH JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 2024; 42:18-35. [PMID: 37800394 DOI: 10.1111/bjdp.12463] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/22/2023] [Accepted: 09/12/2023] [Indexed: 10/07/2023]
Abstract
Children have a proclivity to learn through faithful imitation, but the extent to which this applies under significant cost remains unclear. To address this, we investigated whether 4- to 6-year-old children (N = 97) would stop imitating to forego a desirable food reward. We presented participants with a task involving arranging marshmallows and craft sticks, with the goal being either to collect marshmallows or build a tower. Children replicated the demonstrated actions with high fidelity regardless of the goal, but retrieved rewards differently. Children either copied the specific actions needed to build a tower, prioritizing tower completion over reward; or adopted a novel convention of stacking materials before collecting marshmallows, and developed their own method to achieve better outcomes. These results suggest children's social learning decisions are flexible and context-dependent, yet that when framed by an ostensive goal, children imitated in adherence to the goal despite incurring significant material costs.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mingxuan Zhao
- Early Cognitive Development Centre, School of Psychology, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
| | - Frankie T K Fong
- Early Cognitive Development Centre, School of Psychology, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
- Department of Comparative Cultural Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
| | - Andrew Whiten
- School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, UK
| | - Mark Nielsen
- Early Cognitive Development Centre, School of Psychology, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
- Faculty of Humanities, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa
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Sauciuc GA, Persson T. Empirical challenges from the comparative and developmental literature to the Shared Intentionality Theory - a review of alternative data on recursive mind reading, prosociality, imitation and cumulative culture. Front Psychol 2023; 14:1157137. [PMID: 37901066 PMCID: PMC10613111 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1157137] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/02/2023] [Accepted: 09/28/2023] [Indexed: 10/31/2023] Open
Abstract
Humans have an irresistible inclination to coordinate actions with others, leading to species-unique forms of cooperation. According to the highly influential Shared Intentionality Theory (SITh), human cooperation is made possible by shared intentionality (SI), typically defined as a suite of socio-cognitive and motivational traits for sharing psychological states with others, thereby enabling individuals to engage in joint action in the mutually aware pursuit of shared goals. SITh theorises that SI evolved as late as 400,000 years ago, when our ancestors (in particular, Homo heidelbergensis) turned to a kind of food procurement that obligatorily required joint coordinated action. SI is, thus, hypothesized to be absent in other extant species, including our closest genetic relatives, the nonhuman great apes ("apes"). According to SITh, ape psychology is exclusively driven by individualistic motivations, as opposed to human psychology which is uniquely driven by altruistic motivations. The evolutionary scenario proposed by SITh builds on a series of findings from socio-cognitive research with apes and human children, and on the assumption that abilities expressed early in human development are human universals, unlikely to have been shaped by socio-cultural influences. Drawing on the primatological and developmental literature, we provide a systematic - albeit selective - review of SITh-inconsistent findings concerning psychological and behavioural traits theorised to be constitutive of SI. The findings we review pertain to all three thematic clusters typically addressed in SITh: (i) recursive mind reading; (ii) prosociality; (iii) imitation and cumulative culture. We conclude that such alternative data undermine two core SITh claims: the late evolutionary emergence of SI and the radical divide between ape and human psychology. We also discuss several conceptual and methodological limitations that currently hamper reliable comparative research on SI, in particular those engendered by Western-centric biases in the social sciences, where an overreliance on Western samples has promoted the formulation of Western-centric conceptualisations, operationalisations and methodologies.
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Liszkai-Peres K, Kampis D, Király I. 3-4-year-old children’s memory flexibility allows adaptation to an altered context. PLoS One 2022; 17:e0275071. [PMID: 36149884 PMCID: PMC9506616 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0275071] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/20/2022] [Accepted: 09/09/2022] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Imitation provides a reliable method to investigate the developing memory functions in childhood. The present study explored whether 3-4-year-old children are able to revise their previous experiences after a 1 week delay in order to adapt to an altered context. We used a combined short-term (Session 1) and delayed (Session 2) imitation paradigm based on a previous study with 2-year-olds. The constraints (target object close/far) and relatedly the relevance of using a tool in a goal attainment task (irrelevant/relevant, respectively) changed between the sessions. We found that children in Session 1 used the tool only when it was needed (relevant/object far context). After the 1 week delay when the tool was previously irrelevant and then became relevant, children remembered the irrelevant act and applied it in the altered context. When the tool lost its relevance after 1 week, children used the tool less than before, but did not fully omit it, despite its reduced efficiency. The present data with 3-year-olds was compared to a pattern of results with 2-year-olds (from a similar previous study), that allowed to discuss possible developmental transitions in memory and imitation. We propose that the flexible restoration of a formerly irrelevant act and the maintenance of a formerly successful solution indicate flexibility of preschooler’s memory when guiding imitation. This flexibility, however, interacts with children’s tendency to remain faithful to strategies that were previously ostensively demonstrated to them.
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Affiliation(s)
- Krisztina Liszkai-Peres
- Department of Ethology, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary
- Doctoral School of Psychology, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary
- Institute of Psychology, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary
- * E-mail:
| | - Dora Kampis
- University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
| | - Ildikó Király
- MTA-ELTE Momentum Social Minds Research Group, Psychology Institute, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary
- Cognitive Development Center, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary
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Revisiting an extant framework: Concerns about culture and task generalization. Behav Brain Sci 2022; 45:e257. [DOI: 10.1017/s0140525x22001200] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/11/2022]
Abstract
Abstract
The target article elaborates upon an extant theoretical framework, “Imitation and Innovation: The Dual Engines of Cultural Learning.” We raise three major concerns: (1) There is limited discussion of cross-cultural universality and variation; (2) overgeneralization of overimitation and omission of other social learning types; and (3) selective imitation in infants and toddlers is not discussed.
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Fong FTK, Imuta K, Redshaw J, Nielsen M. The digital social partner: Preschool children display stronger imitative tendency in
screen‐based
than live learning. HUMAN BEHAVIOR AND EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES 2021. [DOI: 10.1002/hbe2.280] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/13/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Frankie T. K. Fong
- Early Cognitive Development Centre, School of Psychology University of Queensland Brisbane Queensland Australia
| | - Kana Imuta
- Early Cognitive Development Centre, School of Psychology University of Queensland Brisbane Queensland Australia
| | - Jonathan Redshaw
- Early Cognitive Development Centre, School of Psychology University of Queensland Brisbane Queensland Australia
| | - Mark Nielsen
- Early Cognitive Development Centre, School of Psychology University of Queensland Brisbane Queensland Australia
- Faculty of Humanities University of Johannesburg Johannesburg South Africa
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Fong FT, Sommer K, Redshaw J, Kang J, Nielsen M. The man and the machine: Do children learn from and transmit tool-use knowledge acquired from a robot in ways that are comparable to a human model? J Exp Child Psychol 2021; 208:105148. [DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2021.105148] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/24/2020] [Revised: 03/03/2021] [Accepted: 03/04/2021] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
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Nielsen M, Fong FTK, Whiten A. Social learning from media: The need for a culturally diachronic developmental psychology. ADVANCES IN CHILD DEVELOPMENT AND BEHAVIOR 2021; 61:317-334. [PMID: 34266569 DOI: 10.1016/bs.acdb.2021.04.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/20/2022]
Abstract
Since the proliferation of television sets into households began over half a century ago there has been widespread interest in the impact that viewing has on young children's development. Such interest has grown with the increasing availability of smart phones and tablets. In this review we examine the literature documenting human social learning and how this learning is impacted when the instructing agent appears on a screen instead of face-to-face. We then explore the shifting nature of screen-based media, with a focus on the increasingly socio-normative manner information is portrayed. We discuss how the changing nature of screen technology might be altering how children interpret what they see, and raise the possibility that this may render prevailing evidence as historical documentation, rather than setting out established developmental milestones that transcend the period in which they were documented. We contend that recognizing the significance of historically changing contexts in developmental psychology is timely when the COVID-19 climate is pushing data collection on-line for many labs, often using tasks that were developed primarily for face-to-face contexts.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mark Nielsen
- School of Psychology, University of Queensland, St. Lucia, QLD, Australia; Faculty of Humanities, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa.
| | - Frankie T K Fong
- School of Psychology, University of Queensland, St. Lucia, QLD, Australia; Department of Psychology, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, United States
| | - Andrew Whiten
- School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, United Kingdom
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