Social Rules Governing Object Conflicts in Toddlers and Preschoolers

Abstract

As adults we often regulate our dealings with others by social rules—generally understood conventions—and so usually we face the front in an elevator, go to the end of a line, etc. Such rules serve to minimize the number of conflicts that otherwise might engage us and generally make our behavior more predictable to others. They appear to be learned, and indeed the explicit teaching of rules is often regarded as an important responsibility of socializing agents. It may be, however, that early in life some social rules emerge quite spontaneously in the context of peer play, not as a result of cultural intervention, but simply as a consequence of a fundamental human propensity to regulate social interaction in a ruleful manner. Independent of explicit adult teaching, even very young children may be capable of developing rules to regulate interaction with their age-mates.