title: Young children mostly keep, and expect others to keep, their promises.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, 14195 Berlin, Germany; Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, 01403 Leipzig, Germany. Electronic address: patricia.kanngiesser@fu-berlin.de.
authors.forename: Patricia
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Kanngiesser
authors.affiliation: School of Health Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, UK; Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, 01403 Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: Bahar
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Köymen
authors.affiliation: Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, 01403 Leipzig, Germany; Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tomasello
mesh_terms: D001288:Attention; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D032882:Comprehension; D003210:Concept Formation; D003469:Culture; D008192:Deception; D005260:Female; D049691:History, Medieval; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D012919:Social Behavior; D012941:Social Responsibility; D012945:Social Values; D013067:Speech Perception; D014705:Verbal Behavior
keywords: Commitments; Obligations; Promises; Prosocial; Social norms; Speech acts