How Does Preschoolers’ Conformity Relate to Parental Style, Anonymous Sharing, and Obedience?

Abstract

Children, just like adults, conform to peer testimony when making ostensibly easy decisions. Yet, some are more prone to conform than others and little is known about which factors contribute to this variability. In the current study, we aimed to investigate the reasons for individual differences in conformity by examining potential correlates of experimentally-elicited conformity in a sample of Swedish 3.5-year-olds (N = 55; 56%girls). Specifically, we asked whether conformity was socialized by parents via their parental style and whether conformity is correlated with the behaviors of anonymous sharing or obedience, which might each share a common motivation with conformity. Our data showed that children’s conformity was associated with fathers’, but not mothers’, authoritarian parental style and with anonymous sharing, but not obedience. The findings lend support to the notions that authoritarian parental style encourages conformist behavior, and that conformity is correlated with anonymous sharing behavior.