Elsevier

Cognition

Volume 196, March 2020, 104152
Cognition

Constraints on conventions: Resolving two puzzles of conventionality

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2019.104152Get rights and content

Abstract

Conventions play a fundamental, yet contested, role in social reasoning from childhood to adulthood. Conventions about how to eat, dress, speak, or play are often said to be alterable, contingent on authorities or consensus, specific to contexts, and–thereby–distinct from moral concerns. This view of conventional norms has faced two puzzles. Children and adults judge that (a) some conventions should not be adopted and (b) some violations of conventions would be wrong even if the conventions were removed. The puzzles derive, in part, from the notion of “pure” conventions: conventions detached from non-conventional concerns. This paper proposes and examines a novel solution to the two puzzles, termed the constraint view. According to the constraint view, children and adults deem conventions as alterable within constraints imposed by non-conventional concerns. The present research focused on constraints imposed by concerns with agents to whom the norms apply and concerns with others affected by the norms. Findings from four studies with preschoolers and adults supported the constraint view. Participants evaluated actions and norms based on concerns with effects on agents and others, deeming conventions to be alterable insofar as the altered norms did not negatively impact agents or others. The constraint view offers a new framework for research on how children and adults integrate conventional and non-conventional concerns when they evaluate norms and acts.

Introduction

Social conventions serve to coordinate social interactions, but some conventions do so better than others (Lewis, 1969; Turiel, 1983). It does not matter whether a basketball team wears red or blue jerseys, but cooperation would suffer if both teams wore the same color (Miller & Bersoff, 1988). In a British secondary school, the dress code prohibited boys from wearing shorts even on days that were uncomfortably hot (Morris, 2017; the boys protested the dress code by wearing skirts instead of pants). In other contexts, conventions about attire or forms of address are perceived to discriminate based on race, or in other ways violate the rights or welfare of others (Ehrlich, Meyerhoff, & Holmes, 2014; Higginbotham, 1990).

In research on the development and psychology of morality, conventions are often said to be arbitrary, alterable, contingent on consensus or authorities, and context-specific (Killen & Smetana, 2015; Turiel, 1983, Turiel, 2015). By conventions, we mean shared, evaluative expectations for how to act that are alterable in the sense that alternative conventions could coordinate the interactions equally well (Lewis, 1969; Turiel, 1983). Children and adults are often said to distinguish conventions from moral concerns, which individuals treat as unalterable, independent of authorities, and applicable across contexts (Nucci & Gingo, 2011; Smetana, Jambon, & Ball, 2014; Turiel & Dahl, 2019).

The moral-conventional distinction has a contested history (Dahl & Killen, 2018; Gabennesch, 1990; Haidt & Graham, 2007; Kelly, Stich, Haley, Eng, & Fessler, 2007; Killen & Smetana, 2015; Kohlberg, 1971; Nichols, 2002; Royzman, Leeman, & Baron, 2009; Shweder, Mahapatra, & Miller, 1987; Turiel, 2002; Turiel & Dahl, 2019). In particular, prior theorizing about the moral-conventional distinction has faced two empirical puzzles: (a) If conventions are arbitrary and contingent on consensus or authorities, why do people think that some conventions should not be adopted? (b) If conventions are context-specific and contingent on consensus or authority, why do people think that some violations of conventions would be wrong if authorities removed those conventions? These two puzzles have led some scholars to critique, or even reject, the moral-conventional distinction (e.g., Gabennesch, 1990; Haidt & Graham, 2007; Kelly et al., 2007; Machery, 2018; Nichols, 2002; Shweder et al., 1987).

This paper proposes and tests a solution to these two puzzles of conventionality. We term our solution the constraint view. According to the constraint view, individuals view conventions as alterable within the constraints of non-conventional concerns. Specifically, the present research tests the prediction that children and adults view social norms about dressing, eating, speaking, and playing as alterable insofar as the altered norms are not detrimental to agents or others.1 From this perspective, there are no “pure” conventions. Although conventional concerns with authorities and traditions are conceptually distinct from moral concerns with welfare and rights, we propose that no norms pertain exclusively to conventional concerns. The subsequent sections argue that prior research and theory about the moral-conventional distinction lead to the two puzzles of conventionality. We then elaborate on the constraint view, before introducing four studies with preschoolers and adults designed to test key predictions of this view.

Section snippets

The moral-conventional distinction: developmental and cultural variability

People distinguish conventional concerns from moral and other concerns from an early age and across the world (for reviews, see Killen & Smetana, 2015; Smetana et al., 2014). By three years of age, children distinguish violations of norms about speaking, eating, or dressing from violations of norms against hitting or stealing along several dimensions (Dahl & Kim, 2014; Nucci & Weber, 1995; Smetana, 1985; Smetana et al., 2012). When asked why it is wrong to wear a bathing suit to school, or

Social Domain Theory: Domain Distinctions and Coordination

Current debates about the moral-conventional distinction center on a framework known as Social Domain Theory. Social Domain Theory proposes that children and adults have evaluative concepts that fall into moral, conventional, and other domains (Killen & Smetana, 2015; Smetana, 2013; Turiel, 2015). Turiel (1983) defined the conventional domain in terms of social organization, tradition, authorities, and consensus; in contrast, he defined the moral domain in terms of others' welfare, rights,

Two persisting puzzles and the notion of pure conventions

Yet, prior debates about the moral-conventional distinction leave two fundamental puzzles about conventionality unresolved. First, (a) if conventions are arbitrary and contingent on consensus or authorities, why do people sometimes judge that some conventions should not be adopted? In many studies, a notable proportion of individuals disapprove of certain norms for dressing, speaking, eating, or playing (Midgette et al., 2016; Shweder et al., 1987; Turiel & Wainryb, 2000; Weston & Turiel, 1980

The constraint view of conventionality

In his classic analysis of conventions, Lewis (1969) proposes that conventions are solutions to social coordination problems. In a coordination problem, “agents have a common interest in all doing the same one of several alternative actions” (Lewis, 1969, p. 24). It does not matter for the basketball team whether the team wears red or white jerseys, but it matters greatly that all members of the team wear the same color. Conventions provide a way of solving such problems through shared

Overview of the present research

Four studies tested key hypotheses of the constraint view. The studies were designed around activities commonly said to be regulated by conventions, such as speaking, dressing, eating, and playing (Dahl & Kim, 2014; Machery, 2018; Smetana et al., 2014; Turiel, 1983; Turiel et al., 1987; Weston & Turiel, 1980). For each of these areas, the constraint view predicts that individuals would typically accept alternative norms (conventional element) insofar as the new norm did not adversely affect

Participants

Forty-eight undergraduate students were recruited from a participation pool at a public research university in the Western United States. Participants received course credit.

Materials

To develop ecologically valid stimuli for Study 1, a preparatory study was conducted. Undergraduate participants (N = 50) were asked to describe nine situations from their everyday lives involving eating, dressing, and addressing others in which they thought someone had done something they should not have done. The students

Participants

Sixty-six undergraduate students (Mage = 19.6 years, 82% female, 17% male, 2% other) were recruited from a research participation pool at a public research university in the Western United States. Participants received course credit for their participation.

Materials

Four initial situations were created involving violations of a social rule that did not have intrinsic negative consequences for the welfare of agents or others: wearing a jersey when playing basketball, saying please when asking for

Participants

Sixty undergraduate students (Mage = 20.0 years, 77% female, 22% male, 2% other) were recruited from a research participation pool at a public research university in the Western United States. Participants received course credit for their participation. Two additional participants were interviewed, but their data were removed because of a recording failure or because the person was not fluent in English.

Materials

Four situations were created that involved rules for children in a preschool: Not wearing a

Participants

Fifty-six children (Mage = 4.3 years, range: 3.0–5.6 years, 55% female, 45% male) were recruited from preschools in the areas surrounding the university from which adult samples were recruited. Three additional children were interviewed, but their data were removed due to parent or teacher interference.

Materials, procedures, coding, and data analysis

The scenarios and questions were identical to those used in Study 3. Participants were interviewed one at a time in a separate location in the child's preschool. The interviewer read the

General discussion

The present research addressed two puzzles of conventionality. If children and adults view conventions as arbitrary, alterable, and contingent on authorities or consensus, why do they judge that (a) some conventions should not be adopted and (b) some violations of conventions would be wrong even if the convention were removed? The constraint view proposes that evaluations and reasoning about social norms are generally constrained. It was hypothesized that, even for “conventional” issues such as

Some implications for debates on the moral-conventional distinction

The constraint view adds clarity to a controversial area of research. The Introduction reviewed recurring debates about the moral-conventional distinction. This paper points to lessons for moving beyond these debates. The first lesson is that the moral-conventional distinction is, fundamentally, a distinction between psychological concerns, not between concrete norms or events. Children and adults categorically distinguish moral concerns with welfare, rights, justice and fairness from

Conclusion and future directions

This research opens several areas of research on how individuals impose constraints on the changeability of conventions. One limitation of this study was that we only recruited participants from a region in the Western United States, and our adult sample consisted of undergraduate students. Sampling from a wider range of populations would likely yield greater diversity of views on the changeability of social rules. Conflicts arise when individuals perceive different constraints, as when they do

Author contributions

Audun Dahl: Conceptualization, Methodology, Supervision of data collection, Data analysis, Original draft preparation. Talia Waltzer: Conceptualization, Reviewing and Editing.

Acknowledgment

This research was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R03HD087590). Some of the ideas in this article were developed through conversations with Marco F. H. Schmidt. We thank Haden Dover, Erica Leverett, and other members of the Early Social Interaction Lab at the University of California, Santa Cruz for helpful comments on previous versions of this manuscript.

Declarations of competing interest

None

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