Innovation and social learning are the pillars of cultural evolution, allowing cultural behaviours to cumulatively advance over generations. Yet, little is known about individual differences in the use of social and asocial information. We examined whether personality influenced 7-11-year-old children's (N = 282) propensity to elect to observe…

Although growing up in stressful conditions can undermine mental abilities, people in harsh environments may develop intact, or even "enhanced," social and cognitive abilities for solving problems in high-adversity contexts (i.e. 'hidden talents'). We examine whether childhood and current exposure to violence are associated with memory…

Studies of children's developing social identification often focus on individual forms of identity. Yet, everyone has multiple potential identities. Here we investigated whether making children aware of their multifaceted identities--effectively seeing themselves from multiple angles--would promote their flexible thinking. In Experiment 1, 6- to…