Evolution and Human Behavior 41 (2020) 23–34

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Evolution and Human Behavior

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Children's understanding of dominance and prestige in China and the UK T

a,1,2,⁎ a,1,3 b
Anni Kajanus , Narges Afshordi , Felix Warneken
a
Department of Psychology, Harvard University, 33 Kirkland St., Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
b
Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, 530 Church St., Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: Individuals can gain high social rank through dominance (based on coercion and fear) and prestige (based on
Dominance merit and admiration). We conducted a cross-cultural developmental study and tested 5- to 12-year-olds, and
Prestige adults in the UK and China, aiming to determine (a) the age at which children distinguish dominance and
Social rank prestige, and (b) the influence of cultural values on rank-related reasoning. We specifically tested participants in
Cultural context
China because of the value of prestigious individuals modestly yielding to subordinates, a social skill that be-
Status
Hierarchy
comes more salient with age. In both populations, the distinction between dominance and prestige emerged at
Yielding five years, and improved over childhood. When reasoning about a resource conflict between a high-ranking
party and a subordinate, adults in both countries expected high-rank individuals to win, although Chinese adults
were less likely to do so regarding prestigious individuals. Across the two countries, younger children (5–7 years)
responded similarly to each other, not favoring either party as the winner. Older children (9–12 years), however,
diverged. Those in the UK chose the high-rank party, while those in China made no systematic inference. Overall,
our findings suggest that while children distinguish prestige and dominance comparably in the two countries,
they develop culturally-influenced expectations about the behavior of high-rank individuals.

1. Introduction
Children start to understand hierarchical relations from a very
young age. For example, infants expect a physically larger agent to win
right-of-way against a smaller competitor at 10 months (Thomsen,
Frankenhuis, Ingold-Smith, & Carey, 2011), and by a few months later
generalize dominance roles across different situations (Mascaro &
Csibra, 2012). These are instances of infants predicting who would win
zero-sum conflicts through force or threat of force. In their second year,
infants also recognize that non-coercive forms of social interaction can
convey differences in social rank. Specifically, 21-month-old infants
expect subordinates to obey a revered and respectful character, even
when absent (Margoni, Baillargeon, & Surian, 2018). This second form
of social rank has been called prestige. It is different from the coercive
dominance of individuals who impose their will on others by eliciting
fear and avoidance, and instead relies on admiration and respect
(Henrich & Gil-White, 2001). Prestige has been studied from different
angles with adults (Cheng & Tracy, 2014), but barring a few exceptions
(Chudek, Heller, Birch, & Henrich, 2012; Margoni, Baillargeon, &
Surian, 2018), it has been overlooked in developmental research.
Consequently, previous work seems to suggest that infants and children
have a stronger grasp on dominance than prestige. However, most
studies have used cues that can indicate both dominance and prestige,
such as physical size (Thomsen et al., 2011), age difference
(Charafeddine et al., 2015), and being imitated (Over & Carpenter,
2015). Thus, whether and to what degree children distinguish these two
forms of hierarchical processes has not been investigated system-
atically. We address this by testing two age groups of children.
Apart from delienating possible ontogenetic shifts, we also compare
two cultural groups. Our goal is to investigate predictions about future
behaviors of prestigious and dominant individuals. Typically, children
expect individuals of higher rank to gain more resources than those of
lower rank (Charafeddine et al., 2016; Enright, Gweon, & Sommerville,
2017). Because developmental findings about social rank typically
come from Euro-American populations, it is unclear whether children
from other cultural environments reason similarly. Thus, our aim is to
investigate the influence of cultural learning on inferences about re-
sources and social rank, for both dominance and prestige. On the basis
of ongoing anthropological research by one of the authors in Nanjing,
China, we predicted that China would offer an interesting comparative

⁎
Corresponding author at: Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 18, 00014, Finland.
E-mail addresses: anni.kajanus@helsinki.fi (A. Kajanus), afshordi@umn.edu (N. Afshordi), warneken@umich.edu (F. Warneken).
1
Joint first authors.
2
Present address: Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 18, 00014, Finland.
3
Present address: Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota, 51 E Pkwy., Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2019.08.002
Received 29 January 2019; Received in revised form 5 August 2019; Accepted 13 August 2019
1090-5138/ © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
A. Kajanus, et al.
test case due to cultural values about yielding in conflict that are
markedly different from Euro-American societies. This involves, in
particular, the value of prestigious individuals yielding to others, which
raises the question as to whether inferences about social rank and
conflict might be affected. The comparison between children in the two
countries will help answer these questions. We first review previous
work on children's understanding of social hierarchies, then outline
differences between the two populations.
1.1. Dominance-based rank
Dominance hierarchies organize the social worlds of many species
(Drews, 1993), including humans (Fiske, 1992), not just in adulthood,
but also early in ontogeny. Infants (11–16 months) observed in a day-
care could be identified as being dominant or subordinate in relation to
others based on the outcomes of their agonistic disputes (Russon &
Waite, 1991). Interestingly, infants preferred to imitate high-ranking
individuals. Similarly, an observational study of four- and five-year-old
children found dominance relationships to be relatively stable over time
(La Freniere & Charlesworth, 1983). This study also revealed that ag-
gressive physical exchanges decreased over the course of the year,
perhaps reflecting the entrenchment of the dominance hierarchy and
the lessened need to assert rank at each turn. Once again, dominant
children were the objects of attention, affiliation, and popularity (La
Freniere & Charlesworth, 1983; also see Hawley, 1999; Abramovitch,
1976; Chance, 1967; Fiske, 1993; Hold, 1976; Vaughn & Waters, 1981).
1.2. Prestige-based rank
Taking an evolutionary perspective, Henrich & Gil-White (2001)
proposed prestige as a uniquely human process that provides the in-
dividual with high rank, but operates on an entirely different premise.
Instead of relying on force or threat of force, prestige is achieved
through “merit in the eyes of others” (Henrich & Gil-White, 2001, p.
170). Prestigious individuals typically possess highly-prized expertise,
which others strive to witness in action and learn from. As a result,
prestigious parties exert considerable influence over “clients”, but are
careful to avoid enforcing their views. In turn, lower-status individuals
treat prestigious persons with respect, seek proximity to them, express
admiration for, and pay tribute to them. The key similarity between
dominance and prestige is that they both bring about deference from
others, but through different mechanisms: Deference towards a domi-
nant person is driven by fear and an intention to avoid a showdown,
which would most likely result in the lower-ranking person losing. In
contrast, deference towards a prestigious person is given freely because
it grants lower-status individuals proximity, which provides learning
opportunities.
For adults, dominance and prestige are effective ways of achieving
high rank (Cheng, Tracy, Foulsham, Kingstone, & Henrich, 2013;
Redhead, Cheng, Driver, Foulsham, & O’Gorman, 2019), but exhibit
differences in many dimensions such as leadership strategies (e.g. Case,
Bae, & Maner, 2018; Case & Maner, 2014; Maner & Mead, 2010), as-
sociated emotions (hubristic vs. authentic pride, Cheng, Tracy, &
Henrich, 2010), personality traits (Cheng et al., 2010), and testosterone
levels (Johnson, Burk, & Kirkpatrick, 2007).
Prior to Henrich & Gil-White (2001), Hawley (1999) put forth a
similar-minded but developmentally-couched theory of strategies that
lead to social dominance. Her framework differentiated between coer-
cive and prosocial strategies—analogous to dominant and prestigious
processes respectively—and suggested that infants' and younger pre-
schoolers' repertoire of behaviors only includes coercive strategies.
These coercive strategies buy attention, affiliation, and influence
among subordinate group members. However, a bifurcation then begins
such that prosocial tendencies exist alongside coercion between the
ages of four and seven (Hawley, 2002, 2003), and take over by age
eight. At this point, coercive strategies cease to be effective in winning
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Evolution and Human Behavior 41 (2020) 23–34
influence (Hawley, 1999).
Finally, recent work on social hierarchies has distinguished between
power and status as bases of social rank (Anicich, Fast, Halevy, &
Galinsky, 2016; Blader, Shirako, & Chen, 2016; Fast, Halevy, &
Galinsky, 2012; Hays & Bendersky, 2015; Magee & Galinsky, 2008).
Power is defined as asymmetric control over outcomes, while status is
respect and admiration in the eyes of others (Fast et al., 2012). Both
dominant and prestigious individuals may possess some degree of
power and status, but dominance is more closely associated with power
– coercive power in particular – while prestige is more closely asso-
ciated with high status. An individual's high rank in a particular social
hierarchy can be based on either power or status, and therefore both
prestigious and dominant individuals are of high rank.
1.3. Third-party inferences about social rank
Infants and preschoolers infer rank based on a wide range of cues as
third-party observers, and most research to date has used cues that
could signal both dominance and prestige. In addition to 10-month-old
infants recognizing size as a cue to rank (Thomsen et al., 2011), slightly
younger infants expect members of larger groups to win (Pun, Birch, &
Baron, 2016). Three-year-olds similarly expect larger groups to prevail
over smaller ones (Lourenco, Bonny, & Schwartz, 2016), and pre-
schoolers recognize the “boss” or the “person in charge” based on cues
of physical size, decision-making ability, age asymmetry, resource
asymmetry (Charafeddine et al., 2015), resource control, goal
achievement, being asked permission (Gülgöz & Gelman, 2017), being
imitated (Over & Carpenter, 2015), and non-verbal gestures such as
posture (Brey & Shutts, 2015). Further, representations of hierarchical
roles in a pair are stable during infancy, meaning that infants expect an
agent who has won a zero-sum conflict to win again in other situations
(Mascaro & Csibra, 2012). Infants also succeed at inferring transitivity
of rank by around 11 months (Gazes, Hampton, & Lourenco, 2017;
Mascaro & Csibra, 2012, 2014). Simultaneously, infants and young
children expect high rank to grant benefits. Infants at 17 months expect
high-ranking parties to receive more resources (Enright, Gweon, &
Sommerville, 2017), preschoolers allocate more resources to them
(Charafeddine et al., 2016), expect them to win competitive games
(Charafeddine et al., 2015), and trust their testimony (Castelain,
Bernard, Van der Henst, & Mercier, 2016; Bernard et al., 2016). At
around age two, infants even show a preference for a character who
wins a right-of-way contest, but not if they won through physical force
(Thomas, Thomsen, Lukowski, Abramyan, & Sarnecka, 2018).
Although this literature has mostly framed these findings in terms of
dominance, the provided cues (e.g. age asymmetry) could be indicative
of either dominance or prestige. In fact, only one study has used a cue
specifically linked to prestige (Henrich & Gil-White, 2001), namely
bystander attention, and found that four-year-olds tended to imitate the
actions of an actor who had been observed by others. Thus, while it may
seem that infants and preschoolers have a solid grasp of dominance, and
potentially a shakier one of prestige, all we know for certain is that
children are sensitive to hierarchical relationships as observers. Con-
sequently, the question of whether they differentiate between dom-
inance and prestige as two rank-forming strategies remains under-
studied. The most relevant investigation is a looking-time study
recently conducted by (Margoni, Baillargeon, & Surian, 2018), who
showed 21-month-olds either a high-rank character who was revered by
subordinates and respectful towards them (prestige-like), or another
character who was physically abusive towards subordinates and feared
by them (dominance-like). Infants' expected subordinates to heed the
respected leader's wishes even after she was gone, but held no such
expectation for the bullying figure. Hence, recognizing both forms of
social rank has early roots. Nonetheless, it is still unknown whether
children differentiate prestige from dominance. Experiment 1 tackles
this question directly by matching characters against each other in a
within-subjects design, presenting characters with cues of dominance
A. Kajanus, et al.
and prestige, and asking whether children understand the combination
of cues that define dominance and prestige: Do children understand
that (1) dominant and prestigious individuals are both high in social
rank, but (2) prestigious individuals are liked and approached, whereas
(3) dominant individuals are feared and avoided? Moreover, we test
two age groups of children (5–7 years, and 9–12 years) to examine the
developmental trajectory of this reasoning.
1.4. Cultural ideas of social rank and yielding in Nanjing and London
The second question at the heart of this paper is whether children
infer that high-ranking individuals have a higher chance at accessing a
resource compared to a low-ranking individual. We chose to test chil-
dren in China on the basis of 12 months of ethnographic fieldwork on
children's social relationships in and out of school, carried out by one of
the authors (an anthropologist) in Nanjing (Kajanus, 2016, 2018, 2019;
Kajanus, McAuliffe, Warneken, & Blake, 2019). The key Chinese cul-
tural value of modest yielding of higher-ranking individuals to lower-
ranking ones does not have an equivalent of equal importance in Euro-
American cultural contexts. The concept of yielding (rang) refers to the
ability to avoid, manage and end conflicts, as well as to display one's
high rank through humility. For example, toddlers are taught to give up
prized toys to children younger than themselves. Yielding is part of a
more sophisticated system of status and power practiced by adults. In
addition to modest yielding of higher-ranking persons to those of lower
rank in relatively unimportant matters, lower-ranking persons can re-
spectfully yield to those of higher rank.
The classic moral story on yielding, Kong Rong Rang Li, ‘Kong Rong
Modestly Declines [yields] a Pear’, teaches both forms of yielding. In
the story, 4-year-old Kong Rong has to distribute pears among himself,
his older brothers and one younger brother. He distributes them ac-
cording to age, giving the largest pear to the oldest brother, but keeps
the smallest to himself. When questioned by his father, Kong Rong says,
“I am younger, I should give the big pears to the older brothers.” Father
asks: “But isn't little brother even younger than you?” Kong Rong re-
sponds: “Because he is younger than me, I should also yield to him.”
The story of Kong Rong has appeared in moral education texts, in-
cluding San Zi Jin, Three Character Classic, from late imperial times,
and reproductions of the story are popular in children's books and TV-
shows today. Yielding is taught and enacted in various ways in chil-
dren's everyday life. For instance, adults often break up a conflict be-
tween two children by addressing the older one with criticisms such as
“Why can't you just yield to her?” Further, the ethnographic research
found that children who are high in prestige in their peer group are
especially expected to yield to others.
While the value of yielding is upheld in China today, it is not un-
contested. As a generation of children has come of age as the only child
of their family, unprecedented emphasis has been placed on in-
dividualistic orientations over collective ones (Anagnost, 2004; Fong,
2004; Kajanus, 2015; Kleinman, Yan, Jun, Lee, & Zhang, 2011; Kuan,
2015; Rofel, 2007; Xu, 2014; Yan, 2009). Values imported from Euro-
American pedagogies into education, such as the freedom of expressing
personal opinions and individualistic desires, have also come to com-
pete with the importance of yielding to others. Further, as the primary
context for practicing modesty would traditionally have been sibling
relationships, the fact that most children do not have siblings di-
minishes their opportunities for learning and expressing it. In light of all
this, children struggle to adapt the norm of modest yielding in their
behavior (Xu, 2017). In response, parents and educators often con-
sciously facilitate situations for children to practice yielding, which in
turn leads to concerns that pressuring children into yielding to others
encourages hypocrisy and scheming rather than appropriate moral
development. For example, children may strategically yield to get
praised by adults, which is against the value placed on sincerity and
freedom of expression (Xu, 2017). In short, showing modesty and
yielding to others, even those lower in rank to oneself, is highly valued
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Evolution and Human Behavior 41 (2020) 23–34
and encouraged in China, but within a complex social context that
acknowledges its difficulty for children.
The cultural difference between Chinese and Euro-American con-
texts was further explored through 6 months of ethnographic fieldwork
in a school and community in London, UK, on children's hierarchies and
conflict behaviors. This work revealed clearly different ideas about
hierarchy and conflict in comparison to the ones observed in China.
More dominant and aggressive behaviors were tolerated by peers in
London than in Nanjing. In Nanjing, children were taught by adults to
give up resources or hold back their views in order to prevent or resolve
conflicts; in London, children were encouraged to defend their view in a
respectful manner. In London, therefore, winning conflicts was a sign of
high status; while in Nanjing losing conflicts could also be a sign of
leadership.
On the basis of this ethnographic comparison, we hypothesized that
the Chinese values surrounding yielding may result in a difference be-
tween children in Nanjing and London, in their inferences about who
would win a desired resource in a conflict. Alternatively, children in
Nanjing may manifest the same expectations as children in London in
light of the sophistication of the norms of yielding in different situa-
tions, as well as the increasing emphasis on individualistic values and
children's lack of opportunities to practice yielding with siblings. The
second experiment tests for a potential difference in expectations be-
tween adults in China and the UK, and the final experiment tests it with
two age groups of children (5–7 years, and 9–12 years).
2. Experiment 1
This experiment aimed to examine, (1) whether children recognize
that dominance and prestige both confer high rank, (2) the age at which
children differentiate between dominance and prestige, and (3) po-
tential differences between children in the UK and China. Three char-
acters were involved in the stimuli: a subordinate central character, a
high-ranking dominant individual, and a high-ranking prestigious in-
dividual. All participants viewed two animated scenes, one involving
only the central and the dominant characters, the other involving only
the central and the prestigious characters. Across the two scenes, a
number of cues were manipulated to showcase the difference between
the dominance and prestige roles (e.g. forcing opinion vs. sharing ad-
vice, subordinate resisting vs. seeking opinion, harsh vs. friendly tone;
see SOM for more details), and between the higher- and the lower-
ranking characters (e.g. drawing more competently). We used empiri-
cally (Charafeddine et al., 2015) and theoretically (Henrich & Gil-
White, 2001) grounded cues for dominance and prestige, and relied on
ethnographic knowledge to develop ecologically valid contexts for
hierarchy. Critically, even though both scenes ended with the central
character choosing to conform to the higher rank character (e.g.
drawing with the same color), the scenes differed in how this had come
about, namely through being forced by the dominant character versus
voluntary copying the prestigious character.
We recruited two age groups in China and the UK, a younger group
(5–7 years), and an older group (9–12 years). To test children's re-
cognition of the rank difference, we asked them who was older between
the low-ranking character and each of the two high-ranking characters
separately. Previous studies have asked children to identify the person
who “is in charge” (Brey & Shutts, 2015), or the “boss” (Charafeddine
et al., 2015; Charafeddine et al., 2016; Over & Carpenter, 2015), which
may carry dominance connotations. We instead chose to ask who was
older, in order to pose the question as neutrally as possible. Given
preschoolers' ability to infer social rank from a host of cues, it is rea-
sonable to expect that both age groups would infer rank differences
here as well. Specifically, the prestige scene included the subordinate
copying the choice that the prestigious character had made, and even
five-year-olds associate being imitated with higher rank (Over &
Carpenter, 2015). In the dominance scene, the dominant character
enforced her decision on the subordinate, another cue that children as
A. Kajanus, et al.
young as three years associate with higher rank (Charafeddine et al.,
2015).
We asked three additional questions to test whether children dis-
tinguished between dominant and prestigious characters: whom the
subordinate would choose to approach, whom she liked more, and
whom she feared more. Correct understanding would be reflected in
answering that the subordinate would approach and prefer the presti-
gious individual, but fear the dominant character.
2.1. Method
2.1.1. Participants
In the UK, 40 children in the younger group (M = 5.7 years,
range = 5.0–6.8 years, 19 female) and 40 children in the older group
(M = 10.4 years, range = 9.3–11.1 years, 21 female) took part in the
study. All children were recruited from and participated at a public
school in central London. According to national school ratings, the
school has a Good rating (on a four-point scale of Outstanding, Good,
Satisfactory, Inadequate). Children at this school came from a mix of
working- and middle-class backgrounds, and were highly diverse in
terms of race and ethnicity. In China, 40 younger children
(M = 5.8 years, range = 5.2–6.3 years, 19 female) and 40 older chil-
dren (M = 10.9 years, range = 10.15–12.95 years, 22 female) partici-
pated. All children were recruited from and participated at their school
or preschool in Nanjing, China. Although no formal rating is available
for the school and preschool, they are both considered to be at average
level, similar to the school in London. Children predominantly came
from working-class backgrounds. The schools and the participants are
not taken to be representative of China and the UK. Instead, we have
used ethnographic methodology to gain an in-depth understanding of
the different cultural and social influences in these particular learning
environments, some of which may be shared to varying degrees on a
national scale, while others are more specific to a location or a group. In
China, the widely shared characteristics include, for example, growing
up as the only child; and the cultural values of modest and respectful
yielding, which can be found in the classics and continue to be part of
ethical practice today (Xu, 2017). In the UK, the widely shared char-
acteristics include education that emphasizes universalistic moral code
giving grounds for defending one's views and interests, rather than
yielding on the basis of rank). The ethnographic findings that have
informed this study have been discussed in more detail elsewhere (some
still in preparation for publication) (Kajanus, 2016, 2018, 2019;
Kajanus, McAuliffe, Warneken, & Blake, 2019; Kajanus, n.d.). Here, we
focus only on comparative aspects that are most relevant to this study,
that is, ideas and behaviors that pertain to hierarchy and conflict.
2.1.2. Materials
Each participant viewed two animated scenes. One scene showed an
Fig. 1. Sample of sticker situation with rectangle character and coloring situation with oval character.
26
Evolution and Human Behavior 41 (2020) 23–34
interaction between the central and the dominant characters (dom-
inance scene), while the other involved the central and prestigious
characters (prestige scene). Native speakers of Mandarin and English
voiced the characters. (See Appendix A for more details.)
2.1.3. Procedure
The central character was introduced, e.g. “This is Dimo” in the
English version. Next, the dominance and prestige scenes played twice
each. The dominance scene used a number of cues to show that the side-
character was dominant towards Dimo (e.g. forcing opinion, aggressive
tone of voice). Contrasting cues were provided to establish the other
side-character as prestigious with regard to Dimo (e.g. sharing opinion
after being consulted, friendly tone of voice). More details are available
in Appendix A.
Five test questions were asked (see Fig. 2). Two enquired who was
older between Dimo and each of the other characters in order to test
recognition of social rank. The three remaining questions tested dif-
ferentiation between dominance and prestige. Side of dominant and
prestigious characters and order of questions was counterbalanced
across participants (See SOM for more details.). See (Fig. 1).
2.1.4. Coding
The dependent variable was percentage of choices for the high-
ranking individual for rank questions (i.e. “Which one is older?”), and
percentage of choices for the prestigious individual for the remaining
three questions. See Appendix A for more details.
2.2. Results
2.2.1. Inferring rank
As shown in Fig. 3a, children were significantly better than chance
at answering who was older between the subordinate and the dominant
character (87.5% correct, binomial test, p < .001, Cohen's h = 0.85). A
binary logistic regression including age (younger, older) and country
(UK, China) found no main effects or interactions (p = .3 for age,
p = .46 for country, and p = .57 for interaction). Similarly, children
were better than chance at identifying who was older between the
subordinate and the prestigious characters (86% correct, binomial test,
p < .001, Cohen's h = 0.8). Once again, a binary logistic regression
failed to find a main effect of age (p = .07) or country (p = .58) or an
interaction between the two (p = .76).
2.2.2. Distinguishing dominance and prestige
Fig. 3b shows responses to the questions distinguishing dominance
and prestige. To examine whether children distinguished between the
two characters, a mixed-effects model including question type (ap-
proach, affiliation, fear), age (younger, older), and country (UK, China)
as fixed effects, and subject as a random effect was used. This analysis
A. Kajanus, et al.
Fig. 2. Test questions in Experiment 1.
found a significant effect of question type, such that responses for the
fear question were significantly lower than responses for approach or
affiliation (Fear – Affiliation, p < .001, Fear – Approach, p < .001;
Affiliation – Approach, p = .32). It also found an effect of age
(OR = 2.2; 95% CI 1.42, 3.48; p < .001), but no effect of country
(p = .66). In other words, children's rate of choosing the prestigious
character in response to the fear question was significantly lower than
for the other two questions, which were not significantly different from
each other. Thus, children distinguished between dominance and
prestige, and viewed the prestigious character as the more approach-
able and likable, and the dominant as the more feared. Further, older
children performed better than younger ones. A number of analyses
were conducted on the questions separately. As can be seen below, they
all found a significant difference between younger and older children,
but no effect of country.
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Evolution and Human Behavior 41 (2020) 23–34
2.2.2.1. Approach question. Children successfully answered whom the
subordinate character preferred, choosing the prestigious character
significantly more than expected by chance (72% choices of prestigious
character, binomial test, p < .001, Cohen's h = 0.46). A binary logistic
regression found a significant main effect of age (OR = 4.2; 95%
CI = 1.42, 14.31; p = .01), but no effect of country (p = .18) or an
interaction (p = .31). Separately testing younger and older children
against chance revealed younger children to respond randomly (55%,
binomial test, p = .43, Cohen's h = 0.1), and older children to respond
significantly higher than chance (89%, binomial test, p < .001,
Cohen's h = 0.89).
2.2.2.2. Affiliation question. Children chose the prestigious character
significantly more often than chance (79% choices of prestigious
character, binomial test, p < .001, Cohen's h = 0.62). A regression
A. Kajanus, et al.
Fig. 3. Children's responses to test questions in Exp. 1 about (a) “Who is older?” between subordinate and each of the prestigious and dominant characters, and (b)
who the subordinate would approach, affiliation, and fear.
analysis found a main effect of age (OR = 0.21; 95% CI = 3.86, 392.11;
p = .004), but no main effect of country (p = .49) or interaction
(p = .76). Testing each of the age groups against chance found
younger children to be marginally (61%, binomial test, p = .06,
Cohen's h = 0.22), and older children to be significantly higher than
chance (96%, binomial test, p < .001, Cohen's h = 1.17).
2.2.2.3. Fear question. Children's responses were significantly below
chance overall, picking the prestigious character less often than chance
(18% choices of prestigious character, p < .001, Cohen's h = 0.69).
According to a binary logistic regression, there was a main effect of age
(OR = 14.79, 95% CI = 2.65278.05, p = .01), but no effect of country
(p = .34) or an interaction (p = .84). Both younger (32.5%, binomial
test, p = .002, Cohen's h = 0.36) and older children (4%, binomial test,
p < .001, Cohen's h = 1.17) chose the prestigious character
significantly less than expected by chance.
2.3. Discussion
Children at both ages recognized that the central character was
lower in rank to both the dominant and the prestigious individuals.
Responses were consistently high for both ages and in both countries. In
differentiating between dominance and prestige, however, older chil-
dren outperformed their younger counterparts for all three questions.
Despite this, both younger and older children's responses were
28
Evolution and Human Behavior 41 (2020) 23–34
significantly different for questions on which the prestigious character
was the correct choice (i.e. who Dimo would sit next to, and who Dimo
liked more) and the question on which the dominant character was the
correct choice (i.e. who Dimo was more scared of). Thus, even younger
children distinguished between dominant and prestigious characters,
albeit not as strongly as older children.
Despite the contrast between the ages, responses on differentiation
questions were comparable across UK and China. The lack of difference
across any of the questions between participants in UK and China shows
that the cues demarcating dominance and prestige were equally ac-
cessible in both countries. This paved the way for asking about a pos-
sible cultural difference in expectations about the outcome of conflicts.
What predictions do adults from the UK and China make about the
behaviors of prestigious and dominant characters in conflict situations?
3. Experiment 2
Here, we investigate how adults in the UK and China reason about
the outcome of conflicts between a subordinate and a high-ranking
character. We asked adults to predict the winner in a conflict over a
desired resource between 1) the subordinate and the dominant in-
dividual, and 2) the subordinate and the prestigious individual. As
discussed above, anthropological studies of China (Kajanus, n.d.; Xu,
2017) indicate a strong value of yielding by high-status, prestigious
individuals towards lower-status ones. Importantly, this norm does not
A. Kajanus, et al. Evolution and Human Behavior 41 (2020) 23–34

appear to have a counterpart of equal importance in Euro-American

culture. Therefore, this experiment aims to test whether this value
translates into different third-party expectations about yielding be-
tween adults in China and the UK. It is possible that directly testing
expectations about who should yield to whom would find a difference
between British and Chinese adults, particularly when the question
concerns a conflict between prestigious and subordinate individuals. If
the difference does manifest empirically, the results would provide us
with a sense of the magnitude of the effect. Alternatively, it is possible
that adults in the two countries would respond similarly, and that the
explicit norm, while culturally important, does not lead Chinese adults
to have different expectations about third-party yielding.
To avoid language that makes assumptions about how the end result
of the conflict came about (e.g. winning or taking vs. yielding or giving
up), choices were presented non-verbally. Participants saw two possible
outcomes for a conflict scene, such that each picture showed one of the
individuals happily in possession of the desired resource, and they were
asked which one would happen.

3.1. Method

3.1.1. Participants
We recruited 40 adults in the UK through Amazon Mechanical Turk
(M = 32.9 years, 12 female). All had lived more than 10 years in the
UK, and the overwhelming majority had spent their whole lives there.
All participants identified as white (European) or black.4 Additionally,
40 adults in China (M = 28.1 years, 15 female) were recruited through
an ad on the crowdsourcing website, Witmart. (Amazon mTurk was not
a viable option for recruiting in China.) Chinese participants had lived
their entire lives in China and identified as being of Han ethnicity.5
Participants were paid 1 USD for their time.
3.1.2. Materials
We used the animations from Experiment 1 to establish the roles of
the three characters. We created two new animations that depicted
conflict scenes. In one, Dimo and the oval character started out on
opposite sides of a walkway, at the center of which an ice-cream cone
stood on a stand. They simultaneously expressed excitement about the
ice-cream (e.g. in English saying, “Wow!”). They then moved towards
the center while smiling. Upon arriving at the center, they stopped,
their smiles changed into neutral expressions, and they both raised their
arms, reaching for the ice-cream. The animation ended at this point.
Two pictures then presented two possible resolutions to the scene (see
Fig. 4): The central character, Dimo, holding the ice-cream and smiling
while the oval character looked on with a neutral expression; or the
oval character smiling and holding the ice-cream while Dimo displayed
a neutral expression. We created a structurally similar animation where
Dimo competed with the rectangular character over a chocolate pop-
sicle. Across both conflict scenes, the characters' relative sides to each
other were preserved (i.e. Dimo left and oval character right in one
scene; Dimo right and rectangle character left in the other scene). Once
again, the correspondence between the dominant and prestigious roles
and the oval- and rectangle-shaped figures was counterbalanced across
participants.
4
According to preset exclusion criteria, participants who indicated any ra-
cial/ethnic group other than white (European) or black, or those who had lived
in the UK less than 10 years were excluded, as it was not clear what cultural
expectations they may have about yielding. On the basis of ethnographic re-
search in London, participants identifying as white (European) or black were
presumed to have relatively consistent ideas about yielding and rank, which
would be clearly different from the Chinese.
5
According to preset exclusion criteria, participants who identified as any
ethnicity other than Han or those who had lived outside of China for an ex-
tended period of time were excluded because the ethnographic evidence came
from Han population living in China.
Fig. 4. Ending of conflict scene between Dimo and oval character (top), and the
possible resolutions (bottom).
3.1.3. Procedure
As in Experiment 1, Dimo was introduced and the dominance and
prestige scenes were shown. Participants were then informed that they
would be asked to make a prediction following a video. They watched
the two conflict scenes, and chose one of the two possibilities as their
prediction. Finally, they were asked to provide justifications for their
choices.
3.1.4. Coding
The dependent variable on the forced-choice questions was the
percentage of choices for the high-ranking characters. Explanations
were coded into four categories: Rank (e.g. “Dimo always does what
others tell him to do.”), Norm (e.g. “You should share.”), Physical (e.g.
“That one is faster.”), and Other (e.g. “I don't know.”) (see SOM for
more details).
3.2. Results
Fig. 5 shows responses for both groups of adults. Overall, partici-
pants were significantly more likely than chance to choose the high-
rank character (82% correct, binomial test, p < .001, Cohen's
h = 0.69). A mixed-effects binary logistic regression including country
(China, UK), case type (Dimo against dominant, Dimo against presti-
gious), and their interaction term as fixed effects, and subject as a
random effect found a significant interaction between country and case
type (OR = 172,819; 95% CI = 202.8, 382,684,419, p = .002). It is
worth noting that the large values in the confidence interval indicate
that there is low precision in the estimate, so while the predictor in-
creased the odds, it is unclear by exactly how much. Separate com-
parison of Chinese and UK participants for each case revealed a sig-
nificant difference for the prestige case (OR = 4.68; 95% CI = 1.32,
22.11; p = .03), but no difference in the dominance case (p = .77). Both
groups were significantly higher than chance on both cases (China:
Dominance: 82.5% correct, binomial test, p < .001, Cohen's h = 0.71;
Prestige: 72.5% correct, binomial test, p = .006, Cohen's h = 0.47; UK:
Dominance, 80% correct, binomial test, p < .001, Cohen's h = 0.64;
Prestige: 92.5% correct, binomial test, p < .001, Cohen's h = 1.02).
Explanations among respondents who chose the high-ranking char-
acters predominantly appealed to rank (95% among China sample, 89%
among UK sample), showing that participants were reasoning about the

29
A. Kajanus, et al.
Fig. 5. Adults' responses to yielding questions in Exp. 2, which asked them to
predict who would win in a conflict between the subordinate and the dominant
characters (dominance case), and between the subordinate and the prestigious
characters (prestige case).
conflict in light of the rank differences between the characters.
3.3. Discussion
This experiment tested expectations about who would win a desired
resource when the subordinate character was (separately) pitted against
the dominant or the prestigious character. Both British and Chinese
adults inferred that higher-ranking characters would win the resource,
regardless of whether they were dominant or prestigious. However,
Chinese adults were significantly less likely to choose the prestigious
person as the winner compared to British adults. Thus, we found sup-
port for the hypothesis that the value on yielding in Chinese culture
translates into differences in third-party expectations. Nevertheless, this
effect is subtle, and does not mean that Chinese adults expect the
subordinate to win, or that they have no prediction at all. The next
experiment tests whether any difference can be observed among chil-
dren in the two countries on the same task.
4. Experiment 3
Given the difference between adults from the two countries in
Experiment 2, we next examine the developmental trajectory. One
possibility is that children at both ages would respond like adults from
their countries. In other words, all children would choose the high-
ranking character more often than chance in both the dominance and
prestige cases, but children in China would be less likely to opt for the
prestigious character. Alternatively, learning the norm of prestigious
individuals yielding to others may be difficult for children in China, and
take longer to develop. Thus, children may start off the same across the
two countries, and older children in China, but not in the UK, would
demonstrate less systematic predictions about the winner.
4.1. Method
4.1.1. Participants
We tested 41 children in the younger group (M = 5.8 years,
range = 5–7.3 years, 21 female) and 40 children in the older group
(M = 10.33 years, range = 9.2–11.2 years, 20 female) in London, UK.
Similarly, we tested 40 younger children (19 female, M = 5.8 years,
range = 5.1–6.3 years) and 40 older children (20 female,
M = 10.98 years, range = 10.3–12 years) in Nanjing, China. Children
were recruited from the same schools as Experiment 1. None had taken
part in Experiment 1.
4.1.2. Materials
Each participant viewed both dominance and prestige cases (case
30
Evolution and Human Behavior 41 (2020) 23–34
order counterbalanced across participants). Materials, Procedure and
Coding were the same as Experiment 2, with the following modifica-
tion: Children watched the dominance and prestige scenes twice instead
of once. Before watching the conflict scenes, the experimenter said,
“After this video, I'm going to ask you what's going to happen next. Let's
watch!” Afterwards, participants saw the resolution pictures and were
asked, “What do you think will happen next? Is this going to happen, or
is this going to happen?” Finally, the experimenter said, “You picked
this picture when I asked what would happen. Why do you think this
one will get it?
4.2. Results
Responses are presented in Fig. 6. A binary logistic regression
analysis including age group (younger, older), country (China, UK),
case type (dominance, prestige), and their interaction terms as fixed
effects, and subject as a random effect was run on the data. We found a
main effect of age (OR = 6.03; 95% CI = 2.26, 17.77; p < .006), a
main effect of country (OR = 2.83; 95% CI = 1.03, 8.39; p = .049), and
no other main effect or interactions. Below, we analyze the two age
groups separately to give a more detailed picture of performance at
each point in development.
4.2.1. Younger children
This age group performed at chance overall (51% correct, binomial
test, p = .94, Cohen's h = 0.02). A mixed-effects binary logistic re-
gression analysis including country (China, UK), case type (dominance,
prestige), and their interaction as fixed effects, and subject as a random
effect, found no main effects (p = .92 for country, p = .38 for case type)
or interaction (p = .74).
4.2.2. Older children
Older children responded with better than chance accuracy (67.5%
correct, binomial test, p < .001, Cohen's h = 0.36). A regression ana-
lysis including country (China, UK), case type (dominance, prestige),
and their interaction as fixed effects, and subject as a random effect,
found a significant main effect of country (OR = 2.83; 95% CI = 1.03,
8.39; p = .049) and no other main effect (p = .5) or interaction
(p = .58). Given the difference between the two countries, each group
was compared to chance separately, revealing UK children to be above
chance (76% correct, binomial test, p < .001, Cohen's h = 0.55), and
Chinese children to be at chance (59% correct, binomial test, p = .15,
Cohen's h = 0.18).
4.2.3. Explanations
Similar to Experiment 2, we categorized responses into the four
categories of Rank, Norm, Physical and Other (see Fig. 7). This
Fig. 6. Percentage of children's choices of high-rank character when asked to
predict outcome of conflict between subordinate and dominant characters
(dominance case), and subordinate and prestigious characters (prestige case),
separated by country and age group.
A. Kajanus, et al.
categorization provided two main insights. First, rank-related ex-
planations were almost non-existent among younger children (~5%),
increased with age such that the majority of older children mentioned
rank (~65%), and culminated in almost unanimous mention of rank by
adults (~90–95%). Younger children almost exclusively focused on
superficial reasons having nothing to do with rank in both countries
(e.g. “He likes it.”, “He was faster.”). The increase in rank-related ex-
planations was true both when focusing on participants who chose the
high-rank character, and when considering responses from everyone,
regardless of how they responded (see Fig. 8). Thus, the younger group
appeared to be construing the scenes in terms of shallow, surface fea-
tures instead of social rank, while older children and even more so
adults were cognizant of the role of rank in determining the outcome of
the conflicts.
Second, the proportion of rank explanations offered by each age
group was similar across British and Chinese participants (See Figs. 7
and 8). In other words, participants in the UK and China were just as
likely as each other to give rank-relevant explanations.
Next, we counted the number of times Chinese participants men-
tioned one party yielding the resource to the other, using terms that are
typically used to talk about the concept (e.g. rang, qianrang). First, this
tally corroborated that younger children did not view the scenes as
relevant to rank since they mentioned yielding only three times (4% of
all explanations), while older children did so 26 times (33% of all ex-
planations). Second, among the older children who chose the high-
ranking character as the winner, children were just as likely to mention
yielding in the prestige case as in the dominance case (40% of prestige
case responses, 23% of dominance case responses, χ2(1) = 1.5,
p = .21). Thus, children were equally likely to think that the sub-
ordinate would yield to either the prestigious or the dominant char-
acter. Third, among those who chose the subordinate as the winner,
children were more likely to think that this would result from the
prestigious character yielding than the dominant character yielding
(50% of prestige case responses, 13% of dominance case responses,
χ2(1) = 4.95, p = .03).6 This suggests that older children differentiated
in how they thought dominance and prestige affected the conflict out-
comes, as a larger number of them expected the prestigious character to
yield to the subordinate.
4.3. Discussion
Younger children (5–7 years) in neither country made consistent
inferences about the outcome of the conflicts, and their explanations
failed to capture the rank-relevant core of the scenes. This is a sur-
prising finding, given their clear success in identifying the high-ranking
parties in Experiment 1 (i.e. answering “Which one is older?” cor-
rectly), and in distinguishing between prestige and dominance (i.e.
inferring that the dominant character was less likely to be liked and
approached and more likely to be feared). In short, younger children
did not connect the rank dynamics to how the conflict would be re-
solved.
Among the older age-group (9–12 years), children in the UK reacted
similarly to adults in the UK such that they thought that both high-
ranking characters would get the resource when matched against the
low-ranking character. In contrast, older children in China did not re-
spond systematically on either case, and made no inference about high-
ranking characters winning. Despite their inconsistent responses, their
explanations were just as focused on rank as those of older British
children. Further, a larger number of children who picked the low-
6
For comparison, we also tallied mentions of yielding (e.g. letting the other
one have it) among older children in the UK. Unlike children in China, rates of
yielding explanations were similar across prestige and dominance cases among
those who chose the subordinate character (25% vs. 28% respectively,
χ2(1) = 0.03, p = .86).
31
Evolution and Human Behavior 41 (2020) 23–34
ranking character as the winner thought that this would be the result of
the high-ranking character yielding in the prestige case than in the
dominance case. Thus, despite the lack of consistent inferences, there
was some evidence to suggest that older children in China were aware
that prestigious individuals may be more likely to yield to a sub-
ordinate.
The developmental trajectory in inferences about the winner of the
conflict scenes seems to be relatively protracted, as neither younger nor
older children in China performed similarly to Chinese adults. This may
be due to the situational complexities that govern when a high-ranking
individual is more likely to yield. It is possible to interpret the conflict
scene either in terms of high-ranking character modestly yielding to
subordinate, or subordinate respectfully yielding to high-ranking
character. Children were equally likely to think that the subordinate
would yield to either the prestigious or the dominant character, but
were more likely to think that the prestigious character, as opposed to
the dominant character, would yield to the subordinate. Thus, chil-
dren's justifications provide evidence that at least a number of them
were explicitly considering modest yielding.
5. General discussion
Our aims were to test: (1) the age at which children differentiate
dominance and prestige; and (2) the influence of cultural ideas of
hierarchy and conflict on expectations about the behaviors of dominant
and prestigious individuals. The experiments yielded several key find-
ings for both lines of inquiry.
(1) Developmental trajectory
First, 5- to 12-year-olds in both the UK and China easily identified
dominant and prestigious characters as high-ranking. Thus, even for the
younger group of children (5–7 years), cues to prestige (e.g. asking for
advice, following said advice) were enough to merit inferences about
rank. In fact, children were just as successful at recognizing that the
prestigious character was higher-ranking as they were for the dominant
character. Next, even younger children distinguished between presti-
gious and dominant characters in a third-party situation, choosing the
prestigious character significantly more when asked whom the sub-
ordinate would approach or like, than when asked whom she feared.
This finding is particularly interesting in light of the fact that children
do not shun coercive (or dominance-like) strategies in their peer groups
until eight years (Hawley, 1999). Since our younger group was younger
than eight years, the finding suggests that shunning coercive strategies
is not the result of noticing the difference between dominant and
prestigious strategies. Nonetheless, the ability to distinguish dominance
and prestige improved with age. Finally, there were no differences
between responses in the UK and China, providing some of the first
empirical evidence of children from non-Euro-American cultures un-
derstanding cues to rank similarly to children in Europe and the US. In
summary, children attributed a combination of traits to the characters
that are reflective of a conceptual distinction between dominance and
prestige, viewing both as having high social rank, but differing in
prestigious characters being liked and approached versus dominant
individuals being feared and avoided.
One alternative explanation of the findings from Experiment 1 is
that children did not actually distinguish dominance from prestige, and
instead succeeded in the task by answering the questions (age, liking,
approach, fear) piecemeal. In other words, maybe they answered that
Dimo would like and approach the prestigious character simply because
the character seemed nice and friendly, and feared and avoided the
dominant character because that one seemed mean and aggressive.
Similarly, children could have inferred age (i.e. rank) by drawing on
cues like being imitated. We do not dispute that these cues led children
to answer the questions correctly. In fact, we claim that this is exactly
what the understanding of prestige and dominance looks like: an
A. Kajanus, et al.
Fig. 7. Breakdown of explanations from all participants in Exp. 2 and 3, separated by age and country. Proportion of rank-relevant responses increased with age, but
did not differ by country.
Fig. 8. Rank-related explanations, separated by participants who chose the high-rank character and all participants, and also separated by country and age.
understanding of this combination of features. None of these individual
features differentiates between dominance and prestige, but one person
having high status while being nice and approachable differentiates this
person from a similarly high-ranking individual who is mean and ag-
gressive.
Although younger children recognized the rank difference between
the characters just as easily as older children (Experiment 1), they did
not infer that higher-ranking parties would win resource conflicts
(Experiment 3). This failure cannot be attributed to a cultural effect, as
children in the UK and China performed similarly. When asked to jus-
tify their choice of who would win the conflict, almost no children
referenced rank in their explanations, confirming that their failure to
infer is a real consequence of how they construed the scene. Thus, al-
though younger children extracted rank from watching interactions
between characters in Experiment 1, they were unable to automatically
incorporate them into inferences about subsequent behaviors in
Experiment 3. Future work should explore this finding further.
(2) Cross-cultural differences
A key contribution from our studies is evidence for the influence of
cultural norms and value systems on how children and adults under-
stand social hierarchies and reason about them. Adults in the UK and
China were similar in that they both inferred that high-ranking
32
Evolution and Human Behavior 41 (2020) 23–34
characters would win against a subordinate. They did differ, however,
in the degree to which they made this inference in the prestige case.
Chinese adults were less likely than British adults to think that the
prestigious person would win the resource. This difference, while
subtle, is a key sign of the cultural difference reflecting the value spe-
cifically placed on yielding to others when in a position of prestige
(Kajanus, n.d.). The cultural difference also manifested in older children
(9–12 years), but in a different way. Older children in the UK inferred
that the high-ranking party would win the conflict, regardless of whe-
ther the character was prestigious or dominant. In contrast, older
children in China responded similarly to younger children in both
countries, demonstrating no systematic prediction about who would
win in either of the conflict cases. But unlike younger children's ex-
planations, which were shallow and unrelated to social rank, older
children in China and the UK provided similar levels of rank-relevant
explanations (around 65%). Consequently, the lack of systematic in-
ferences was age-driven in younger children, but culturally influenced
in older children in China. Moreover, older children in China who
thought the subordinate would win the conflict were more likely to
mention the prestigious character yielding than the dominant character
yielding. This finding aligns with the value of yielding by prestigious
individuals. Together, these findings suggest that the difference be-
tween older children in China and the UK is rooted in a cultural dif-
ference.
A. Kajanus, et al.
On the topic of Chinese participants' choices, two points merit fur-
ther discussion. With regard to adults, the fact that Chinese participants
thought that both dominant and prestigious parties would win the
conflict gives room for pause, given the value of prestigious individuals
showing restraint and giving up resources to lower-status parties.
However, it is important to note that yielding to those in lower posi-
tions is a sophisticated social skill highly dependent on the nuances of
the situation, such as the dynamics of ascribed status hierarchies and
the importance of the issue at the root of the conflict (Kajanus, n.d.).
Thus, most adults may have viewed the situation as one in which the
high-ranking character lacked the sophistication to yield, given the
cartoonish appearance of the characters, the simplicity of the ex-
changes, and the prestigious character's unabashed and juvenile desire
for the resource. This may have made the high-ranking character's win
the more straightforward choice. A number of them may have, none-
theless, considered the situation in terms of the prestigious character
yielding, thereby bringing about the difference with the British adults.
Another puzzling finding has to do with the older Chinese children's
responses in Experiment 3. In a reverse situation from the adults,
children held no expectation of either party winning in either conflict
case. The lack of a clear prediction may be understandable for the
prestige case, but is more surprising in the dominance case. As the data
do not clarify the reason for this result, we can only speculate. One
likely account is that children at this age are not yet fully proficient in
the complexities of rank relations and the rules of yielding. They have
learned that high-ranking persons will sometimes yield, but the ways in
which personality characteristics (e.g. prestige, dominance) and as-
cribed hierarchies (position, age, gender, etc.) factor into yielding are
still unclear. It is therefore possible that even though they distinguish
between dominant and prestigious processes, in relation to yielding
they simply treat them similarly as signs of high rank. It is notable that
even adults of both countries treated the prestige and dominance cases
the same in their predictions about yielding. This does not mean that
they cannot distinguish between prestige and dominance as bases of
high rank. Unlike Experiment 1, which specifically tested this ability,
Experiments 2 and 3 were focused on predictions about yielding in a
conflict between high-ranking and low-ranking character. Even so,
Chinese adults were less likely to choose the prestigious character as the
winner than the UK adults. Older children also showed signs of making
the distinction in relation to yielding, as they were more likely to
mention the higher-ranking character yielding in the prestige scene
than in the dominance scene.
One limitation of the present studies was the sample size (n = 40
per age, country), which although on par with previous work on chil-
dren's reasoning about social rank (e.g. Charafeddine et al., 2015,
2016), was not very large. Although a larger sample would have been
more beneficial, the number of children in the schools we had access to
logistically limited us. We hope to remedy this in our future work.
Relying on large amounts of ethnographic evidence, Fiske (1992)
laid out a theory of four elementary forms of social relationships in
human societies, one of which is authority ranking, which corresponds
to hierarchical relationships marked by rank differences. Even though
the relational model of authority ranking might be universal, it can be
implemented in myriad ways. Children may be endowed with an innate
knowledge of the model of hierarchical relationships (Thomsen &
Carey, 2013), but they must learn its details and exactly how it operates
in their particular social milieu. These experiments provide evidence for
one such culturally-influenced aspect of hierarchical relationships
across two cultural backdrops. The range of cultural features and cues
to relationships is underexplored, as is how children come to learn them
and how long it takes them to do so. We offer an initial glimpse of one
particular aspect and hope that future work will go on to uncover many
more.
33
Evolution and Human Behavior 41 (2020) 23–34
Declaration of Competing Interest
None.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the European Commission Marie
Skłodowska-Curie Actions (623128 IIDEV FP7-PEOPLE-2013-IEF) and
the Leverhulme Trust (ECF-2016-072). The funding bodies were not
involved in the study design; data collection, analysis, and interpreta-
tion; or preparation of the manuscript. We would like to express our
gratitude to Susan Carey and Joseph Henrich for their feedback on the
studies and on previous drafts of this manuscript. We thank Pearl Han
Li for her contribution to the stimuli, and Jing Xu for her comments on
the study design. We are grateful to the children who participated and
their schools and parents for their cooperation.
Appendix A. Supplementary materials
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://
doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2019.08.002.
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