Children's distinct drive to reproduce costly rituals
Date
18/12/2023Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
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.
Citation
Zhao , M , Fong , F T K , Whiten , A & Nielsen , M 2023 , ' Children's distinct drive to reproduce costly rituals ' , Child Development , vol. Early View . https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.14061
Publication
Child Development
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0009-3920Type
Journal article
Description
This study was supported by an Australian Research Council Discovery Project Grant to MN and AW (DP140101410).Collections
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