Children Show Selectively Increased Language Imitation after Experiencing Ostracism

Autor/inn/en	Hopkins, Zoe L.; Branigan, Holly P.
Titel	Children Show Selectively Increased Language Imitation after Experiencing Ostracism
Quelle	In: Developmental Psychology, 56 (2020) 5, S.897-911 (15 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Zusatzinformation	ORCID (Hopkins, Zoe L.)
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0012-1649
DOI	10.1037/dev0000915
Schlagwörter	Social Isolation; Interpersonal Relationship; Imitation; Language Usage; Children; Preadolescents; Grammar; Syntax; Social Influences; Foreign Countries; Elementary School Students; Intelligence Tests; Expressive Language; Receptive Language; Vocabulary; Age Differences; Gender Differences; United Kingdom (England); Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Soziale Isolation; Interpersonal relation; Interpersonal relations; Interpersonelle Beziehung; Zwischenmenschliche Beziehung; Sprachgebrauch; Child; Kind; Kinder; Pre-adolescence; Präadoleszenz; Grammatik; Sozialer Einfluss; Ausland; Intelligence test; Intelligenztest; Rezeptive Kommunikationsfähigkeit; Wortschatz; Age; Difference; Age difference; Altersunterschied; Geschlechterkonflikt
Abstract	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. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01