Learning the rules and expectations that govern our social interactions is one of the major challenges of development. The current study examined whether bilingualism is associated with differences in children’s developing social knowledge. We presented 54 4- to 6-year-old monolingual and bilingual children with vignettes of moral transgressions (e.g., hitting), social transgressions (e.g., wearing pants on one's head), and language transgressions (e.g., calling a common object by a nonsense word) and asked about their permissibility. In line with previous research findings, results demonstrate that all children evaluated moral violations more harshly than conventional violations. Notably, however, bilingual children were more permissive of violations across moral, social, and language domains than monolingual children. These findings yield new insights into the role of early experience in the development of social knowledge. We propose that bilinguals’ unique linguistic and social experiences influence their understanding of moral and conventional rules.

了解支配我们社会交往的规则和期望是发展的主要挑战之一。目前的研究调查了双语是否与儿童社会知识发展的差异有关。我们向 54 名 4 至 6 岁的单语和双语儿童展示了道德违规（例如，打人）、社会违规（例如，头上穿裤子）和语言违规（例如，用陌生人称呼共同对象）的小插曲。废话）并询问他们的许可。与之前的研究结果一致，结果表明所有儿童都比传统的违规行为更严厉地评估道德违规行为。然而，值得注意的是，双语儿童比单语儿童更容易容忍道德、社会和语言领域的违规行为。这些发现对早期经验在社会知识发展中的作用产生了新的见解。我们认为双语者独特的语言和社会经验会影响他们对道德和传统规则的理解。