Wearing your knowledge on your sleeve: Young children’s reasoning about clothing as a marker of group-specific knowledge

Abstract

In four experiments, we explored children’s use of shared clothing style to infer grouplevel knowledge. In Experiment 1, 3-and 4-year-olds and 6-and-7-year-olds inferred that those wearing identical clothing (i.e., same style, color, and pattern) were likely to share the same knowledge, while those who wore different clothing were not. In Experiment 2, we introduce variation into the clothing to make it more difficult for children to use a similarity heuristic. In this case, 6-and-7-year-olds but not 3- and 4-year-olds, used clothing style to make inferences about shared knowledge. Using the same varied clothing styles, Experiment 3 demonstrates that 3-and 4-year-olds use clothing style to make other social inferences (i.e., about friendship choices), demonstrating that younger children are capable of making some social inferences based on shared clothing style. Finally, Experiment 4 tested the mechanism underlying older children's judgments. Namely, we manipulated the ownership status of the garment and found that when the same clothing style was worn by an owner, but not a borrower, older children inferred shared knowledge.