Poster #196 - Chinese Preschoolers’ Ownership Judgment Based on First Possession

• In Event: 1-005 - Poster Session 01
  In Poster Session: PS 01 Section - Social Cognition

Integrative Statement

First possession is one of the most important principles that people use to infer ownership (Friedman, 2009; Friedman & Neary, 2008; Friedman, Van de Vondervoort, Defeyter, & Neary, 2013). Previous studies have revealed that three-year-olds could use first possession as a cue to judge ownership (Friedman & Neary, 2008; Friedman et al., 2013; Rochat et al., 2014). However, most of these studies asked children to make ownership judgments in the third-party stance. In daily life, many of children’s property disputes are between themselves and other children. It is unclear whether preschoolers can apply the first possession rule to the contexts when they are in the first-party stance. This study investigated how preschoolers judged ownership when they served as either the third party or the first party when their own benefits were conflicted with the first possession rule. Thirty-eight 3-year-olds and thirty-seven 5-year-olds were recruited. In the third party condition, subjects were presented with a video in which two different people sought the present in a room (see Fig 1a.). In the first party condition, subjects were told that he/she and a hand puppet would be given a present but the present was hidden in the room and they must find it(see Fig 1b.). The hand puppet was always the first finder in the first party condition. Then subjects were asked whom the present should be given. The results revealed that whether in the third party condition or in the first party condition, both 3-year-olds and 5-year-olds tended to support the first possessor as owner. For 3-year-olds, subjects who selected the first possessor did not differ between two conditions, χ2(1) = 1.75, p > .05. But for 5-year-olds, they were more likely to select the first possessor as owner in the third party condition than in the first party condition, χ2(1) = 4.55, p < .05. There was no significant difference between 3-year-olds and 5-year-olds that selected the first possessor as owner in the first party condition, χ2(1) = .39, p > .05. However, 5-year-olds were less inclined to hold the first possession rule in the first party stance than in the third party stance (see Fig 2.), which suggests their ownership judgments were susceptible to contexts where their own interests were involved. In sum, this study demonstrates that when preschoolers served as the first party in the contexts where their benefits conflict with the first possession rule, they are more likely to neglect the first possession rule, which may explain their frequent property disputes in real life.

Authors

• Zhanxing Li, Xi’an Jiaotong University
  Presenting Author

• Liqi Zhu, Chinese Academy of Sciences
  Non-Presenting Author