Young children mostly keep, and expect others to keep, their promises.
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2017-03-09
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Promises are speech acts that create an obligation to do the promised action. In three studies, we investigated whether 3- and 5-year-olds (N=278) understand the normative implications of promising in prosocial interactions. In Study 1, children helped a partner who promised to share stickers. When the partner failed to uphold the promise, 3- and 5-year-olds protested and referred to promise norms. In Study 2, when children in this same age range were asked to promise to continue a cleaning task-and they agreed-they persisted longer on the task and mentioned their obligation more frequently than without such a promise. They also persisted longer after a promise than after a cleaning reminder (Study 3). In prosocial interactions, thus, young children feel a normative obligation to keep their promises and expect others to keep their promises as well.
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Kanngiesser, Patricia, Bahar Köymen and Michael Tomasello (2017). Young children mostly keep, and expect others to keep, their promises. J Exp Child Psychol, 159. pp. 140–158. 10.1016/j.jecp.2017.02.004 Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/13884.
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