Why Children Prefer People Who Speak a Similar Language to them

In most cases we find children preferring other people to ourselves and we ask ourselves how this is happening. Children tend to listen to how we speak, how we interact with others and how we behave around them. Keenly, they get to select the people they want around themselves. While they are at home, they listen to how their parents and family speak and they compare it to how you speak. This way they decide whether you belong to them or not, via language.

Children will prefer to befriend, imitate and listen to people who speak in their accent, dialect and linguistic values compared to anyone who is new to their language. They find the person familiar compared to any other who is not speaking their language. Since they cannot distinguish faces, they listen to how you speak and determine how familiar you are to them. In case a child is bilingual, fascinatingly, they will always prefer native speakers to non-native speakers.

As we keeps asking why this happens, only one answer is derived, "As the world becomes more globalized, it is more important than ever to consider how exposure to diversity can promote acceptance rather than amplify intergroup biases," says Kana Imuta, Assistant Professor,  the University of Queensland.