After many tilt

Do children tend to rely on the opinion of the majority, as adults do? The study before you tries to answer this question

Miriam Dishon-Berkowitz Galileo Magazine

Compare in your mind because you have to give your opinion on a subject that is unfamiliar to you, while you are exposed to different opinions of people. Which opinion will you be more influenced by, the majority opinion or the minority opinion?

Many previous studies have indicated that adults tend to trust the majority opinion. Now the question arises, do small children also tend to swim with the current and rely on the opinion of the majority? For example, when toddlers are asked what is the name of an object that is unfamiliar to them, and they have just heard different opinions about its name for the first time, whose opinion will they trust, the opinion of the majority or the opinion of the minority? In a study published in the journal Psychological Science, Kathleen Corriveau, Maria Fusaro and Paul Harris try to answer this question.

Experiment 1 - the first stage

In the first experiment, two groups of children participated: a group of 16 three-year-old children (of which seven were girls) and a group of 16 four-year-old children (of which eight were girls). In the first stage of the study, each child watched a movie. The film opens with a still image in which four different women are seen, each of them wearing a shirt of a different color: green, purple, blue and red. The experimenter said to the boy: "Here are four women. One is dressed in a red shirt, the other in a blue one (etc.). These four women will help us learn the names of new concepts."

On a table in front of the women, three objects were placed that the children did not know before (for example, a hook-like object, painted with red and white stripes; a kind of nozzle of a funnel painted in yellow, etc.). The experimenter asked the children: "See these funny objects? Do you know what they are called? One of them is called X" (here the experimenter inserted a dummy word; for example, "One of them is called Modi"), and added: "Maybe these women will be able to help us know what object Modi is."

Now the children watched the movie and received information from the women about the name of the object. This was done in the following way: the narrator in the film voiced an instruction to the women in the film: "Show me the X (and here we will enter the name of the object; for example, "Show me the Modi"). Three of the women simultaneously pointed to one of the objects (eg the hook-like object), while the fourth woman pointed to another object (eg the nozzle-like object). At the end of the film, a still image of the four women (when they are not pointing) and the three objects was shown.

Now the child is asked: "What do you think? They (the three women) pointed towards this object, and she pointed towards this object. What object is the Modi?” The child was asked to point to the object that he thought was Moody.

The second stage

In the second phase of the experiment, each child watched another movie. One of the women from the majority group was seen in the film, and the only woman from the minority group. A new object is placed on the table each time.

The experimenter asked the boy: "Do you know the name of this object? Here are two women, which one do you want to help us find out the name of the object?"

The film opened with the narrator asking "Can you tell me the name of this object?" The two women answered, each in turn, using dummy words. The first said "This is Linz", while the second said "This is Salud". Now the child is asked what he thinks the name of the object is, Linz or Salud.

Finally, the experimenter pointed to each of the two women and asked the child two questions: "Was the woman in the green (or red) shirt successful or not able to say the names of the objects", and "Which of the two women knew the names of the objects better?"

From the analysis of the results of the study, it became clear that in the first stage of the experiment, both age groups (the three-year-old and the four-year-old) tended to accept as correct the claims (names of the objects) presented by the majority group. Furthermore, in the second phase of the experiment, they believed more the woman who was originally from the majority group than the woman who was originally from the minority group. Hence, already at the age of three and four, children show sensitivity to the opinion of the majority and are influenced by it.

The second experiment

In the second experiment, two groups of children participated: a group of 17 three-year-old children (of which nine were girls) and a group of 17 four-year-old children (of which nine were girls). The experimental procedure was the same as that of the first experiment, except for the following differences: the majority group included only two women (compared to three in the first experiment); The minority group also included one woman in this case.

In addition, the woman in the minority group pointed to the relevant object with both hands (and not just one hand as in the first experiment), while the women in the majority group pointed to the object with only one hand. And this is the reason for the change: as I remember, in the first experiment, the child saw three hands (of three women) pointing at one object, and one hand (of the woman in the minority group) pointing at another object. Therefore, it is possible that the preference shown by the children for the object pointed to by the women in the majority group is not due to a tendency to lean towards the plural, but simply from the fact that they paid more attention to the object to which three hands were directed compared to one hand.

To test this explanation in the second experiment, the two women in the majority group in the second experiment pointed to an object, each with one hand, and the only woman in the minority group pointed to the object with two hands, meaning that the children saw the same number of hands pointing each time. Thus, if the children in the first experiment were only influenced by the number of hands directed towards a certain object, then it should not be expected that the children in the second experiment would prefer the majority group. Conversely, if the children in the first experiment were influenced by the opinion of the majority group compared to the opinion of the minority group, then one can expect the results of the first experiment to be similar to those of the second experiment.

Indeed, from the analysis of the results of the second experiment it becomes clear that the results were similar to those of the first experiment, and in this experiment as well the children preferred the opinion of the majority.

When children come into contact with others, they are not always exposed to unanimity on various matters. Children meet people who are different from each other in the way they speak, in their attitudes and opinions. The findings of the present study are primary evidence that children deal with a variety of opinions of others through a simple and clear strategy: relying on the opinion of the majority.

The author is a psychologist and an organizational and marketing consultant.

For the source of the image in Wikipedia