Editorial: Learning in Social Context: The Nature and Profit of Living in Groups for Development

Király, Ildikó; Buttelmann, David (2017). Editorial: Learning in Social Context: The Nature and Profit of Living in Groups for Development. Frontiers in psychology, 8(336), pp. 1-2. Frontiers Research Foundation 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00336

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One of humans' most distinctive feature is their unique sociality. Research has shown that people are ready to use a variety of cues to draw distinctions between “us” and “them” (Over and Carpenter, 2012). Theories of social categorization share common assumptions: in-group bias may benefit an individual as it helps them to boost their own self-esteem (Tajfel and Turner, 1986) or provides an ideological ground for oppressing others (Sidanius and Pratto, 1993).
Past research in developmental psychology has already provided insight into children's representations of the social world. It has been shown that infants as young as only a few months of age categorize others based on gender (Quinn et al., 2002). They even do so for language (Kinzler et al., 2007), which has been identified as a reliable indicator of group-membership for infants. While there is emergent evidence that already infants form “social categories,” little is known about the fact whether infants' social categories reflect an “in-group” preference per se, or a preference for people sharing traits with those in their environment.
The central question of this research topic focused on the role of the ability to categorize social partners in the environment for the developing mind. More precisely, we wanted to see whether this ability influences epistemic development as well, beyond the enrichment of social-emotional competencies.

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