A critical skill of childhood is learning social norms. We examine whether the generic pronouns “you” and “we,” which frame information as applying to people in general rather than to a specific individual, facilitate this process. In one pre-registered experiment conducted online between 2020 and 2021, children 4- to 9-year-old primarily living in the midwestern U.S. (N = 146, 75 girls, 71 boys, M_age = 7.14, SD = 1.69, 82% White) interpreted actions described with generic pronouns (vs. “I”) as normatively correct and selected the speaker who used generic pronouns as the rule-follower, particularly when generic pronouns were presented first. There were no significant effects of age. These results illustrate how generic pronouns influence how children discern unfamiliar norms and form interpersonal judgments.

中文翻译：

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学习游戏规则：通用“你”和“我们”在塑造儿童对规范的解释中的作用

童年的一项关键技能是学习社会规范。我们检查通用代词“你”和“我们”是否促进了这一过程，这些代词将信息描述为适用于一般人而不是特定个人。在 2020 年至 2021 年期间在线进行的一项预注册实验中，主要居住在美国中西部的 4 至 9 岁儿童（N  = 146，75 名女孩，71 名男孩，M_年龄 = 7.14，SD = 1.69，82% 白人）将用通用代词（相对于“我”）描述的行为解释为规范正确，并选择使用通用代词的说话者作为规则遵循者，尤其是当首先出现通用代词时。年龄没有显着影响。这些结果说明了通用代词如何影响儿童辨别不熟悉的规范和形成人际关系判断的方式。