3-113 - The causes and consequences of preschoolers’ differing attitudes to competition

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Young children vary greatly in their attitudes towards competition, but very little is known about the sources of these differences, and much remains to be learned about their consequences. The papers presented here take different methodological and conceptual approaches to illuminate these issues.

Paper 1 presents a laboratory study of preschoolers’ understanding of third-party conflict situations, in which participants predict the future actions of agents with different goals. Individuals differed in their ability to predict that agents with conflicting goals would take actions which hindered each other. This ability correlated with false belief understanding, causing the authors to argue that increases in competitiveness observed with age are due to development in children’s understanding that others have goals that conflict with their own. Paper 2 investigates a range of potential causes of differences in preschooler’s competitive and cooperative behaviour, assessed by parents, teachers, and observation of a structured situation. The two clearest predictors of competitive behaviour were fathers’ self-assessed competitiveness, and interaction partners’ relationship quality, highlighting the importance of both background and situational factors. Paper 3 takes an observational approach and focusses on the strategies used by preschoolers in natural conflict situations. Although a broad range of strategies were found, from coercive to prosocial to mixed, somewhat surprisingly the different strategies had little effect on the conflict outcomes.

Finally the presentations will be analysed by a discussant with long experience of studying conflict in children, who has carried out many empirical studies focussed on individual differences and using an evolutionary approach.

Sub Unit

• Social Relationships

Chair

• Ben Kenward, Uppsala Universitet

Discussant

• Patricia H Hawley, Texas Tech University

Individual Presentations

• Children’s understanding of clashing values in competition and sabotage - Presenting Author: Beate Priewasser, University of Salzburg; Josef Perner, University of Salzburg; Johannes Roessler, University of Warwick

• The correlates of preschooler’s competitive and cooperative choices - Presenting Author: Malin Eriksson, Uppsala University; Ben Kenward, Uppsala Universitet

• Resource Control Strategies and Conflict Outcomes: A Dyadic Analysis - Presenting Author: Cary J. Roseth, Michigan State University; I-Chien Chen, Michigan State University; Barbara Thelamour, College of Wooster