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Challenging "rule breakers"

Children will confront their peers, but how they do so varies across cultures

From how we say "hello" to the side of the road we drive on, all societies have norms – or "rules" – that shape people’s everyday lives. Now a new study – the first of its kind – has shown that children worldwide will challenge peers if they break the "rules", but how they challenge them varies between cultures. Led by the University of Plymouth, UK and Freie Universität Berlin, Germany, the study analysed the behaviour of 376 children aged five to eight from eight societies in Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America.

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© MPI f. Evolutionary Anthropology