Social contexts of learning literate language: The role of varied, familiar, and close peer relationships

Two prominent theories in evolutionary biology have stressed the role of social contexts in the evolution of primate cognition. One theory holds that cognition evolved in the context of individuals having to keep track of their interactions with a variety of conspecifics. In the other theory, cognition evolved in the contexts of familiar and close social relationships. In this paper, we present two experiments examining the effects of varied, familiar, and close social contacts on preschool children's literate language and story re-reading. We hypothesized, based on developmental evolutionary theory, that closeness, in the form of increased familiarity and friendship, would maximize children's expression of emotional terms, conflict/resolution cycles, collaborative responses, literate language, and story re-readings. In Study 1, children were exposed to one of two conditions. In the more familiar condition, initially unfamiliar children interacted with the same peer across four separate observations. In the less familiar, varied condition, a focal child interacted with a different unfamiliar peer on four separate occasions. Consistent with predictions, children in the more familiar condition increased their use of emotional terms and literate language and story re-reading with time. In Study 2, a familiar group (as defined in Study 1) was compared with children in bestfriend dyads. As predicted, friends outperformed familiar peers initially, but between-group differences decreased across time while children's performance in the familiar group increased across time. Results are discussed in terms of the role of familiarity in the evolution of cooperation and cognition.