title: Does children's moral compass waver under social pressure? Using the conformity paradigm to test preschoolers' moral and social-conventional judgments.
abstract: The current study tested whether preschoolers' moral and social-conventional judgments change under social pressure using Asch's conformity paradigm. A sample of 132 preschoolers (Mage=3.83years, SD=0.85) rated the acceptability of moral and social-conventional events and also completed a visual judgment task (i.e., comparing line length) both independently and after having viewed two peers who consistently made immoral, unconventional, or visually inaccurate judgments. Results showed evidence of conformity on all three tasks, but conformity was stronger on the social-conventional task than on the moral and visual tasks. Older children were less susceptible to pressure for social conformity for the moral and visual tasks but not for the conventional task.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and Social Behavior, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697, USA. Electronic address: ekim26@uci.edu.
authors.forename: Elizabeth B
authors.initials: EB
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and Social Behavior, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697, USA.
authors.forename: Chuansheng
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical and Social Sciences in Psychology, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627, USA.
authors.forename: Judith G
authors.initials: JG
authors.lastname: Smetana
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and Social Behavior, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697, USA.
authors.forename: Ellen
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Greenberger
mesh_terms: D000704:Analysis of Variance; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D007600:Judgment / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D009014:Morals; D000067074:Peer Influence; D012919:Social Behavior; D012925:Social Conformity
keywords: Conformity; Consensus; Moral judgments; Preschoolers; Social domain theory; Social learning