Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Humans are enmeshed in many hierarchical relationships, such as that between a parent and child. Leaders in dominance hierarchies are typically strong and intimidating, while leaders in prestige hierarchies are respected for their expertise. In an ongoing study (N=13), we ask whether preschoolers ages 4–5 have different expectations about how dominant and prestigious leaders divide resources. Children learned about two social groups, the dominant Glerks and prestigious Zonks. Children watched a leader and subordinate from each group pick five apples and divide them into two baskets in a 5-0 or 3-2 split. We then pointed to one basket and asked children whether the leader or subordinate took that share of apples. In preliminary results, we find that children expect the dominant (76.9%) but not prestigious leader (46.2%) to take all of the apples, which suggests that children expect dominant leaders to claim a larger share of resources.