Owen Waddington, Bahar Köymen
When navigating the social world, children learn from others about the commitment value of promises. This knowledge shapes their expectations of promisers and their social attitudes towards those who break them. What has yet to be explored, however, are children's attitudes towards individuals who avoid commitment. In a preregistered online study, 4- and 5-year-olds (N = 96, 49 girls, UK-based) were presented with a joint cleaning task in which two agents failed to help their partner tidy; one agent promised to help, the other avoided doing so. Both agents then gave either "good" or "bad" reasons for their behaviour. In the Good Reason condition, children evaluated both agents similarly. In the Bad Reason condition, 5-year-olds, but not 4-year-olds, preferred the promise-breaking agent, perhaps because of the cooperative intent promises typically convey. These findings have interesting implications for children's social learning in the context of commitment; namely, how early socialisation about the value of promises can produce in children positive attitudes towards those who break them.