Likely stories: Young children favor typical over atypical story events

Abstract

Across four experiments (total N = 280) we find that children aged 2–4 show a novel bias favoring typical over atypical story events. In Experiment 1, 2−3-year-olds expected animals in a story to eat species-typical foods, even though other animals in the story ate foods atypical for their species. In Experiment 2, 2−3-year-olds successfully remembered atypical events in a story, which suggests the bias does not result from difficulty remembering these events. In Experiment 3, 3−4-year-olds chose atypical events when judging how a story would continue. But when predicting how the experimenter would continue the story, they were as likely to choose typical events. In Experiments 4A&B, children persisted in choosing typical events after having been asked to explain why earlier story events had been atypical. Overall, our findings suggest that children favor typical over atypical story events and may have difficulty disregarding or overriding the bias.