Preschoolers negatively evaluate conventional norm violations in pretend play.

A growing body of research demonstrates that children's pretend play is largely influenced by their understanding of reality. The current work took a novel approach to testing children's understanding of pretense by investigating whether children apply and uphold their knowledge of conventional norms in pretend play. In this study, 3- to 5-year-old children (N = 200) were introduced to a series of pretend play scenarios (e.g., pretending to eat breakfast) in which a puppet pretended to follow a norm (e.g., pretended to eat cereal for breakfast) or violate a norm (e.g., pretended to eat a hamburger for breakfast). These pretend play scenarios were presented as either fantastical or realistic in nature. Consistent with our hypotheses, children evaluated pretend norm violation more negatively than pretend norm adherence and reported liking norm violators less than norm followers. Contrary to our hypothesis, the manipulation of play context (fantastical vs. realistic) did not affect children's evaluations. That is, children were just as negative about pretend norm violations (relative to pretend norm adherence) in fantastical pretend play scenarios as they were in realistic pretend play scenarios. Furthermore, individual differences in children's fantasy orientation did not predict their evaluations. This study is the first to establish that children maintain their real-world understanding of conventional norms in pretend play, providing further evidence that children's pretense is largely realistic in nature.

Similarity in transgender and cisgender children's gender development.

Gender is one of the central categories organizing children's social world. Clear patterns of gender development have been well-documented among cisgender children (i.e., children who identify as a gender that is typically associated with their sex assigned at birth). We present a comprehensive study of gender development (e.g., gender identity and gender expression) in a cohort of 3- to 12-y-old transgender children (n = 317) who, in early childhood, are identifying and living as a gender different from their assigned sex. Four primary findings emerged. First, transgender children strongly identify as members of their current gender group and show gender-typed preferences and behaviors that are strongly associated with their current gender, not the gender typically associated with their sex assigned at birth. Second, transgender children's gender identity (i.e., the gender they feel they are) and gender-typed preferences generally did not differ from 2 comparison groups: cisgender siblings (n = 189) and cisgender controls (n = 316). Third, transgender and cisgender children's patterns of gender development showed coherence across measures. Finally, we observed minimal or no differences in gender identity or preferences as a function of how long transgender children had lived as their current gender. Our findings suggest that early sex assignment and parental rearing based on that sex assignment do not always define how a child identifies or expresses gender later.

Preschool Children Transfer Real-World Moral Reasoning into Pretense.

Is it wrong to pretend to kick or pretend to steal? The current experiment examined whether preschoolers extend their moral principles from reality into pretense and whether this transfer depends on the proximity of the pretend world to the real world. Children are known to transfer their knowledge of object properties, causality, and problem solutions between pretend and real worlds. However, do children maintain their real-world moral reasoning in pretense? Preschoolers (N = 63) judged the acceptability of antisocial behaviors in pretend, fantastical, or non-pretend scenarios. Children found antisocial behaviors to be equally unacceptable in both pretend and non-pretend situations but found antisocial behaviors to be more acceptable in the fantastical situations. These results imply that children extend their real-world representations of morality in pretense, but more so for pretend scenarios that are similar to the real world. Implications for children's understanding of the reality-fantasy boundary and moral reasoning are discussed.

Gender Development in Transgender Preschool Children.

An increasing number of transgender children-those who express a gender identity that is "opposite" their natal sex-are socially transitioning, or presenting as their gender identity in everyday life. This study asks whether these children differ from gender-typical peers on basic gender development tasks. Three- to 5-year-old socially transitioned transgender children (n = 36) did not differ from controls matched on age and expressed gender (n = 36), or siblings of transgender and gender nonconforming children (n = 24) on gender preference, behavior, and belief measures. However, transgender children were less likely than both control groups to believe that their gender at birth matches their current gender, whereas both transgender children and siblings were less likely than controls to believe that other people's gender is stable.

Intuitive intellectual property law: A nationally-representative test of the plagiarism fallacy.

Studies with convenience samples have suggested that the lay public's conception of intellectual property laws, including how the laws should regulate and why they should exist, are largely incommensurate with the actual intended purpose of intellectual property laws and their history in the United States. In this paper, we test whether these findings generalize to a more diverse and representative sample. The major findings from past work were replicated in the current study. When presented with several potential reasons for IP protection, the lay public endorsed plagiarism and felt that acknowledging the original source of a creative work should make copying that work permissible-viewpoints strongly divergent from lawmakers' intent and the law itself. In addition, we replicate the finding that lay people know remarkably little about intellectual property laws more generally and report little experience as users or creators of creative works.

Experimental investigations on the basis for intellectual property rights.

Lay people routinely misunderstand or do not obey laws protecting intellectual property (IP), leading to a variety of (largely unsuccessful) efforts by policymakers, IP owners, and researchers to change those beliefs and behaviors. The current work tests a new approach, inquiring whether lay people's views about IP protection can be modified by arguments concerning the basis for IP rights. Across 2 experiments, 572 adults (recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk) read 1 of 6 arguments about the basis for IP protection (incentives, natural rights, expressive rights, plagiarism, commons, or no argument). Participants then reported their general support for IP protection. Participants also reported their evaluations of 2 scenarios that involved infringement of IP rights, including cases in which there were mitigating experiences (e.g., the copier acknowledged the original source), and completed several demographic questions. Three primary findings emerged: (a) exposure to the importance of the public commons (and to a lesser extent, exposure to the argument that plagiarism is the basis of IP protection) led participants to become less supportive of IP protection than the incentives, natural rights, expressive rights, and control conditions; (b) people believed that infringement was more acceptable if the infringer acknowledged the original creator of the work; and (c) older adults and women were especially likely to see infringement as problematic. These findings illustrate several ways in which lay beliefs are at odds with legal doctrine, and suggest that people's views about IP protection can be shaped in certain ways by learning the basis for IP rights. (PsycINFO Database Record