Exploring the Nature of Early Social Preferences by Gaye Soley, Boğaziçi University
The human social world is remarkably complex and varied: diverse factors, including language, gender, political affiliation, and preferences for sports teams, modulate people’s social choices and social interactions. Children also choose social partners based on some of these attributes, however, it is unclear whether these choices rely on genuinely social factors: Children’s preferences might reflect their sensitivity to agents’ group membership. Alternatively, these preferences might reflect certain emotional biases (e.g., preference for the familiar or for the individuals who are perceived as similar to the self) that become linked to social groups only later in life. In this talk, I will present a series of experiments, in which I explore children’s sensitivity to others’ group membership and ask whether inferences of social group membership guide children’ social choices from early on.
DATE : Tuesday, 14 March
TIME : 12.40-13.30
ROOM : A 130
BUILDING: FEASS