Across diverse societies, task assignment is a socialization practice that gradually builds children's instrumental skills and integrates them into the flow of daily activities in their community. However, psychosocial tensions can arise when cooperation is demanded from children. Through their compliance or noncompliance, they learn cultural norms and values related to autonomy and obligations to others. Here, we investigate task assignment among BaYaka foragers of the Republic of the Congo, among whom individual autonomy is a foundational cultural schema. Our analysis is based on systematic observations, participant observation, and informal interviews with adults about their perspectives on children's learning and noncompliance, as well as their own learning experiences growing up. We find that children are assigned fewer tasks as they age. However, children's rate of noncompliance remains steady across childhood, indicating an early internalization of a core value for autonomy. Despite demonstrating some frustration with children's noncompliance, adults endorse their autonomy and remember task assignment being critical to their own learning as children. We argue that cross‐cultural variation in children's compliance with task assignments must be understood within a larger framework of socialization as constituted by many integrated and bidirectional processes embedded in a social, ecological, and cultural context.

中文翻译：

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社会化，自治与合作：平等主义者BaYaka任务分配的启示

在不同的社会中，任务分配是一种社会化实践，可以逐步建立儿童的工具技能，并将其融入社区的日常活动中。但是，当要求儿童合作时，可能会产生社会心理紧张。通过遵守或不遵守，他们学习与自治和对他人的义务有关的文化规范和价值观。在这里，我们调查了刚果共和国BaYaka觅食者之间的任务分配，其中，个人自主是基本的文化图式。我们的分析是基于系统的观察，参与者的观察以及与成人的非正式访谈，以了解他们对儿童学习和不遵从的看法，以及他们成长中的学习经历。我们发现，随着年龄的增长，给孩子分配的任务更少。然而，儿童的违规率在整个童年时期都保持稳定，这表明自治核心价值的早期内部化。尽管对孩子的不遵守行为表现出一定的挫败感，但成年人还是认可他们的自主权，并记得任务分配对于孩子们自己的学习至关重要。我们认为，必须在更大的社会化框架内理解儿童对任务分配的依从性的跨文化差异，这是由嵌入在社会，生态和文化环境中的许多整合的双向过程构成的。尽管对孩子的不遵守行为表现出一定的挫败感，但成年人还是认可他们的自主权，并记得任务分配对于孩子们自己的学习至关重要。我们认为，必须在更大的社会化框架内理解儿童对任务分配的依从性的跨文化差异，这是由嵌入在社会，生态和文化环境中的许多整合的双向过程构成的。尽管对孩子的不遵守行为表现出一定的挫败感，但成年人还是认可他们的自主权，并记得任务分配对于孩子们自己的学习至关重要。我们认为，必须在更大的社会化框架内理解儿童对任务分配的依从性的跨文化差异，这是由嵌入在社会，生态和文化环境中的许多整合的双向过程构成的。