How do children know what makes a group or not? Beginning early in development, children are already cognitively processing the boundaries of group membership. In our research, we find that young children rely on interpersonally communicated social cues about individuals and groups to determine group membership (Straka et al., 2021 & Straka et al., in prep). To this effect, determining whether an individual may belong to a group or not often necessitates including or excluding that person from existing social groups.
Moreover, our research has also found that children’s social behaviors (e.g., inclusion) are also impacted by their beliefs about and membership within social groups (Straka et al., in press).
Relevant articles
1. Straka, B.C., Stanaland, A., Tomasello, M., & Gaither, S.E. (2021). Who can be in a group? 3- to 5-year-old children construe realistic social groups through mutual intentionality. Cognitive Development, 60, 101097. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2021.101097
2. Straka, B.C., Stanaland, A., Gaither, S.E. (in prep). Mutual Intentionality and Essentialized Groups.
3. Straka, B.C, Albuja, A., Leer, J., Brauher, K., Gaither, S. (in press). Children’s Class Social Essentialism and Group Bias. Developmental Psychology.