Even Preschoolers Can Spot a Cop-Out
hubie writes:
We've all been there. You made a promise you couldn't keep. Or something came up, and you didn't follow through on what you said you'd do.
It turns out children pay attention to what we say when we don't deliver.
A new study shows that by the time they reach preschool, kids understand that some reasons for reneging are more defensible than others.
"At 3 to 5 years old, kids are on to you. They know when you're giving a bad excuse," said first author Leon Li, who did the research with developmental psychologist Michael Tomasello as part of his Ph.D. in psychology and neuroscience at Duke.
[...] No matter what the excuse (or lack thereof), the children agreed that it was generally wrong to break a promise. But they were more understanding when the puppets offered a good excuse (i.e., they had to help someone), versus a lame one (i.e., they just wanted to do something fun instead).
In other words, children this age grasp that obligations to help others take priority over selfish desires, Li said.
The children's responses also revealed that a lame excuse was just as bad as none at all.
"Previous research has suggested that in some cases, young kids will just take any reason to be better than no reason at all," Li said. "But here we showed that kids do pay attention to the actual content."
[...] Li said the findings are also relevant to any adult who has uttered the classic fallback phrase, "Because I said so."
"Kids are paying attention and can tell that is a lame reason," Li said.
Journal Reference:
"Young Children Judge Defection Less Negatively When There's a Good Justification," Leon Li, Aren Tucker, Michael Tomasello. Cognitive Development, Nov. 3, 2022. DOI: 10.1016/j.cogdev.2022.101268
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