Movement synchrony is an essential feature of rituals and collective displays around the world. Previous studies have shown that synchronous movements increase observers’ perceived group entitativity and fighting capacity in agonistic contexts; however, little is known about the developmental roots of synchrony-dominant attributions. In this study, adult participants (Exp 1), 5- to 6-year-old children (Exp 2) and 7- to 8-year-old children (Exp 3) predicted outcomes of zero-sum conflicts between two groups of animated agents after each group exhibited either synchronised or non-synchronised movements. Predictions were made for conflicts between two individual members from different groups (individual-conflict condition) and between all members of the two groups (group-conflict condition). Results showed that none of the participant groups showed a synchrony-dominant preference in the individual-conflict condition. In the group-conflict condition, most adult participants expected the groups exhibiting synchronised movements to be socially dominant. Although 5- to 6-year-old children did not show more biased expectations than can be accounted for by chance, adult-like synchrony-dominant preference was found in 7- to 8-year-old children. Moreover, justifications of the synchrony-dominant expectation in both adults and 7- to 8-year-old children showed that this expectation was driven by the perceived entitativity of the synchronous group. These findings show that the expectation of group dominance based on synchronous movements is strongly developed in school-age children, explaining the developmental origins of intergroup attitudes as well as the cognitive mechanisms children employ when making judgments in intergroup contexts.

中文翻译：

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观察者同步主导期望的发展

运动同步是世界各地仪式和集体展示的基本特征。先前的研究表明，同步运动会增加观察者在竞争环境中感知的群体实体性和战斗能力；然而，人们对同步主导归因的发展根源知之甚少。在这项研究中，成人参与者 (Exp 1)、5 至 6 岁儿童 (Exp 2) 和 7 至 8 岁儿童 (Exp 3) 预测两组动画之间零和冲突的结果每组之后的特工表现出同步或非同步运动。预测来自不同群体的两个个体成员之间的冲突（个人冲突条件）和两个群体的所有成员之间的冲突（群体冲突条件）。结果表明，没有一个参与者组在个人冲突条件下表现出同步主导的偏好。在群体冲突的情况下，大多数成年参与者期望表现出同步运动的群体在社会上占主导地位。尽管 5 至 6 岁儿童没有表现出比偶然原因更多的偏见期望，但在 7 至 8 岁儿童中发现了类似成人的同步主导偏好。此外，成人和 7 至 8 岁儿童的同步主导期望的理由表明，这种期望是由同步组的感知实体驱动的。这些研究结果表明，基于同步运动的群体优势期望在学龄儿童中得到了强烈发展，