Normative language understanding and behavioral compliance longitudinally predict 2.5-year-olds' social norm enforcement

Abstract

Young children’s emerging normative views are a central topic in developmental science. However, there is little evidence on the longitudinal precursors of young children’s norm enforcement behavior. The present study combined longitudinal and experimental analyses to address this research gap. At 2.5 years, we assessed children’s protest behavior against moral and conventional violations. We assessed children’s compliance and normative language understanding at 1.5 and 2 years as longitudinal predictors of norm enforcement behavior. Most importantly, children’s compliance and normative language understanding longitudinally predicted their conventional protest, while arousal to moral transgressions concurrently related to their moral protest. Moreover, children protested more against conventional than against moral transgressions while evaluating both types of transgressions negatively. Overall, these results support a social-cognitive approach to early moral development.