Children's Use of Pragmatic Inference to Learn about the Social World

Autor/inn/en	Baharloo, Roya; Vasil, Ny; Ellwood-Lowe, Monica E.; Srinivasan, Mahesh
Titel	Children's Use of Pragmatic Inference to Learn about the Social World
Quelle	In: Developmental Science, 26 (2023) 3, (9 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Zusatzinformation	ORCID (Baharloo, Roya) ORCID (Ellwood-Lowe, Monica E.)
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1363-755X
DOI	10.1111/desc.13333
Schlagwörter	Stereotypes; Beliefs; Pragmatics; Inferences; Preschool Children; Adults; Social Influences; Context Effect; Social Development; Social Cognition + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Klischee; Belief; Glaube; Pragmalinguistik; Inference; Inferenz; Pre-school age; Preschool age; Child; Children; Pre-school education; Preschool education; Vorschulalter; Kind; Kinder; Vorschulkind; Vorschulkinder; Vorschulerziehung; Vorschule; Sozialer Einfluss; Soziale Entwicklung; Soziale Kognition
Abstract	Young children often endorse stereotypes--such as "girls are bad at math." We explore one mechanism through which these beliefs may be transmitted: via pragmatic inference. Specifically, we ask whether preschoolers and adults can learn about an unmentioned social group from what is said about another group, and if this inferential process is sensitive to the context of the utterance. Sixty-three- to five-year-old children and fifty-five adults were introduced to two novel social groups--Stripeys and Dotties--and witnessed a speaker praising abilities of one group (e.g., "the Stripeys are good at building chairs"). To examine the effect of context, we compared situations where the speaker was knowledgeable about the abilities of both groups, and had been queried about the performance of both groups (broad context), versus situations where the speaker was only knowledgeable about one group and was only asked about that group (narrow context). Both preschoolers and adults were sensitive to context: they were more likely to infer that the group not mentioned by the speaker was relatively unskilled, and were more confident about it, in the broad context condition. Our work integrates research in language development and social cognitive development and demonstrates that even young children can "read between the lines," utilizing subtle contextual cues to pick up negative evaluative messages about social groups even from statements that ostensibly do not mention them at all. (As Provided).
Anmerkungen	Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://www.wiley.com/en-us
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01