Happy Normativists: Do Children Express Happiness When Following Conventional Norms?

Abstract

Young children rapidly acquire and rigidly adhere to conventional norms. Prior accounts of this early-emerging norm behavior propose that children perceive conventional norms as obligations to their cultural groups and, in conforming to the norms, sacrifice their individual desires for the welfare of the group. In the current research, we investigate the hypothesis that children may actually derive happiness from adhering to conventional norms, thus aligning rather than diverging from their individual desires. To test this hypothesis, we presented 4–5-year-old children (N = 120) with a novel apparatus in which they were either be taught a set of actions that constituted the norm for operating the apparatus (Norm condition) or a set of actions that they chose from to use the apparatus (Control condition). While performing these actions, we videorecorded and coded children's facial expressions to measure the happiness they derived from performing the actions in the norm versus control conditions and asked them to retrospectively report on their happiness while using the apparatus. Facial expressions and self-reports of happiness did not differ across conditions; however, they were significantly higher than neutral.