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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Developmental Psychology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1455392

Adults' and Children's Reasoning about the Potential of Diverse Groups

Provisionally accepted
Drew Weatherhead Drew Weatherhead 1*Shaylene E. Nancekivell Shaylene E. Nancekivell 2Rebeka Workye Rebeka Workye 1
  • 1 Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada
  • 2 University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    In two experiments, we examine the degree to which adults (Experiment 1) and children 5-to-8-years-old (Experiment 2) use diversity to infer a group's cooperative and innovative potential. Participants heard a child-friendly vignette about a competition in which a homogenous and diverse group were competing to design the perfect toy. They were then probed using questions related to the group's innovative potential and cooperative potential and asked to justify their responses. Results show that adults believed that the diverse group would produce the more innovative product, while children endorsed the homogenous group. When asked a question probing cooperation, adults selected the homogenous group, whereas children were equally likely to select either group. Analysis of adults' explanations showed their explanations differed depending on which group they endorsed. However, children's explanations did not show this nuance. Exploratory analyses suggest that participants' responses were influenced by their personal experiences with gender and racial diversity.

    Keywords: social cognition, diversity, Innovative potential, cooperative potential, Children

    Received: 26 Jun 2024; Accepted: 29 Oct 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Weatherhead, Nancekivell and Workye. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Drew Weatherhead, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.