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ERIC Number: EJ1249864
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2020-May
Pages: 15
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0012-1649
EISSN: N/A
Children Show Selectively Increased Language Imitation after Experiencing Ostracism
Hopkins, Zoe L.; Branigan, Holly P.
Developmental Psychology, v56 n5 p897-911 May 2020
When threatened with ostracism, children attempt to strengthen social relationships by engaging in affiliative behaviors such as imitation. We investigated whether an experience of ostracism influenced the extent to which children imitated a partner's language use. In two experiments, 7- to 12-year-old children either experienced ostracism or did not experience ostracism in a virtual ball-throwing game before playing a picture-matching game with a partner. We measured children's tendency to imitate, or align with, their partner's language choices during the picture-matching game. Children showed a strong tendency to spontaneously align with their partner's lexical and grammatical choices. Crucially, their likelihood of lexical alignment was modulated by whether they had experienced ostracism. We found no effect of ostracism on syntactic alignment. These findings offer the first demonstration that ostracism selectively influences children's language use. They highlight the role of social-affective factors in children's communicative development, and show that the link between ostracism and imitation is broadly based, and extends beyond motor behaviors to the domain of language.
American Psychological Association. Journals Department, 750 First Street NE, Washington, DC 20002. Tel: 800-374-2721; Tel: 202-336-5510; Fax: 202-336-5502; e-mail: order@apa.org; Web site: http://www.apa.org
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Elementary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: United Kingdom (England)
Identifiers - Assessments and Surveys: Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A