The Domain Frequency Association: A mental shortcut to guide children’s generalization of norms and preferences

The current research investigated a potential mental shortcut that facilitates children’s categorization and generalization of social behavior, called the Domain Frequency Association (DFA). The DFA is a bidirectional association in which children automatically connect a behavioral domain (e.g., norm or preference) with behavioral frequency (e.g., whether many or few group members demonstrate the behavior). When children observe a majority of group members demonstrating a behavior they may assume that the behavior is a norm that all group members should follow. When a minority of group members demonstrates a behavior, children may infer that it is a choice or preference that group members can decide to follow or not. We explored whether children utilized the DFA in two tasks: In Study 1, we provided 4- and 5-year-old preschool (n = 25) and 7- and 8-year-old school-aged children (n = 26) with evidence of either frequency or domain and asked them to verbally provide the other attribute using a forced-choice response measure. Children selected norms more often when behaviors were frequent versus infrequent and selected preferences more often when behaviors were infrequent versus frequent. In Study 2, we examined 4- and 5-year-old preschool children’s (n = 25) and 7- and 8-year-old young school-aged children’s (n = 25) memory patterns for DFA-consistent information (e.g., frequent norms & infrequent preferences) and DFA-inconsistent information (e.g., infrequent norms & frequent preferences). Children were more likely to remember DFA-consistent information than DFA-inconsistent information and tended to misremember inconsistent information as consistent. Together these results demonstrate the presence of an early emerging inferential strategy that structures children’s thinking about the social world.