TY - JOUR
T1 - A cross-cultural investigation of children's willingness to imitate prosocial and antisocial groups
AU - Wilks, Matti
AU - Redshaw, Jonathan
AU - Mushin, Ilana
AU - Nielsen, Mark
N1 - Funding Information:
This study was supported by an Australian Research Council Discovery Project ( DP140101410 ) and an Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship. We thank the parents, children, and staff at Borroloola School for their participation and help with data collection in the Northern Territory. We also thank the staff, parents, and children at Queensland Museum and ScienCentre and the Early Cognitive Development Centre at the University of Queensland for their assistance with data collection in Brisbane.
PY - 2019/9
Y1 - 2019/9
N2 - Extensive research has documented that the antisocial behavior of others influences children's perceptions of and behavior toward them. In general, children report liking antisocial agents less, allocate them fewer resources, and are less likely to help them. Despite this, no research to date has explored how antisocial behavior may influence another socially driven behavior—imitation. Moreover, no research has addressed this question cross-culturally. To explore this, children were shown groups behaving prosocially or antisocially and were subsequently given the chance to imitate causally opaque actions (employed to highlight their normative framework) performed by these groups. Children from two cultures in Australia were included in the sample: Brisbane, a medium to large metropolitan city, and Borroloola, a remote indigenous community. Results revealed no impact of prosocial or antisocial behavior on imitative actions in either culture. However, we did identify differences in imitation rates between communities. Specifically, children from Borroloola persisted with imitation at far higher rates than children from Brisbane, highlighting the need for further nuanced research to unpack cross-cultural differences in social learning proclivities.
AB - Extensive research has documented that the antisocial behavior of others influences children's perceptions of and behavior toward them. In general, children report liking antisocial agents less, allocate them fewer resources, and are less likely to help them. Despite this, no research to date has explored how antisocial behavior may influence another socially driven behavior—imitation. Moreover, no research has addressed this question cross-culturally. To explore this, children were shown groups behaving prosocially or antisocially and were subsequently given the chance to imitate causally opaque actions (employed to highlight their normative framework) performed by these groups. Children from two cultures in Australia were included in the sample: Brisbane, a medium to large metropolitan city, and Borroloola, a remote indigenous community. Results revealed no impact of prosocial or antisocial behavior on imitative actions in either culture. However, we did identify differences in imitation rates between communities. Specifically, children from Borroloola persisted with imitation at far higher rates than children from Brisbane, highlighting the need for further nuanced research to unpack cross-cultural differences in social learning proclivities.
KW - imitation
KW - antisocial behaviour
KW - prosocial behaviour
KW - casually opaque
KW - cross-cultural
U2 - 10.1016/j.jecp.2019.04.018
DO - 10.1016/j.jecp.2019.04.018
M3 - Article
C2 - 31154173
AN - SCOPUS:85066256316
SN - 0022-0965
VL - 185
SP - 164
EP - 175
JO - Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
JF - Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
ER -