Effects of group entitativity on young English-speaking children's interpretation of inclusive We.

ABSTRACT: The pronoun we can be used to refer to various collections of people depending on various pragmatic factors. This article reports the results of two online experiments that investigated children's interpretation of inclusive we, in which the child-listener is part of the intended referent of we. 128 2- and 4-year-olds collaborated with three partners in a coloring task. Before they played together, one partner informed participants that, e.g., "we can color!" Participants had their own markers and had to choose to how many partners to distribute (virtual) markers. In the first experiment, the partners appeared more like an aggregation of individuals than a collaborative group. The second experiment flipped this so that the partners appeared more like a collaborative group. Contrary to expe

SUBMITTER: Vasil J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11232990 | biostudies-literature | 2024

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature