AbstractsPsychology

Power differences organize social relations across species. They emerge early in development, and are observed in children???s early relationships with peers and adults. Despite the ubiquity of social power relations, little is known about how children conceptualize them. This dissertation provides an experimental examination of children???s developing understanding of social power relationships between individuals, and among members of social groups. In Part I, Studies 1, 2, and 3 provide an extensive investigation of 3- to 9-year-old children???s and adults??? sensitivity to interpersonal social power relations across five manifestations of power: resource control, goal achievement, permission, giving orders, and setting norms. These studies examine children???s understanding of power both in situations where the powerful individual may be perceived as unkind (Studies 1 and 2), and in situations where the powerful individual may be perceived as benevolent (Study 3). Findings reveal that children as young as 3 or 4 years old represent social power relations between individuals across several dimensions of power, when presented with powerful individuals who were malevolent as well as benevolent. As predicted, sensitivity to social power in resource control, goal achievement, and permission situations emerges earlier in development. With age, children???s sensitivity extends over all five of the dimensions tested, becoming almost adult-like by age 7 to 9. Part II of the dissertation examines children???s sensitivity to power relations between members of social categories. Participants are shown vignettes depicting two individuals contrasting in power, and are asked to identify the relative age (Study 4) or gender (Study 5) of the individuals. Findings indicate that young children are more likely to infer relative age than gender based on power differentials, and that even adults do not consistently map power onto these social categories. Overall, this dissertation provides one of the first in-depth experimental examinations of children???s developing concepts of social power. The findings show that children are sensitive to social power relations early on, and even use these power relations to make inferences about people???s social group memberships.