Young Children Believe Intervening In Antisocial Behaviour Is A Universal Duty. Adults Don ’t

By Emily Reynolds When witnessing harmful behaviour, most of us hope for intervention of some kind: if we see someone receiving abuse on public transport, for example, it’s likely we want to see some action taken. Who we want to intervene in such acts, however, is more divisive. Some believe social norms should be enforced by authorities, whilst others stress that responsibility should be shared amongst us all. An interesting example of this is the discussion around policing, with abolitionists arguing that much of the work done by the police would be better led by communities themselves. Our politics may inform our stance — and according to a new study in Cognition from Julia Marshall and colleagues at Yale University, so might our age. The team finds that older children and adults tend to see norm enforcement as the responsibility of authorities, while younger children see that duty as universal. In the first study, a group of 84 four-to-seven-year-olds and 36 adults were presented with a scenario in which an authority figure — a parent or teacher — and an ordinary person witnessed teasing. In one story, someone was teased in a park in front of two witnesses: the transgressor’s mother and someone walking in the park. In the other, set in a school, the teasing was seen by a teacher and by another student in the class. All characters were adults or teenagers. After seeing the scenarios, both groups were asked questions about how obligated each witness was to do som...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: bullying Developmental Social Source Type: blogs