Children’s Collaboration in Peer Groups Across Diverse Societies

• In Event: 1-091 - A Cross-Cultural Exploration of the Role of Interdependence in Children’s Cooperative Motivations

Integrative Statement

Humans are a uniquely cooperative species and young children already show remarkable abilities for cooperation (Tomasello, 2009). Yet, there is variation in children’s cooperative behaviour across cultures and sub-cultures (e.g., Cook, & Stingle, 1974; House et al., 2013; Madsen, 1971; Madsen, & Yi, 1975; Zeidler et al., 2016). While some studies have found more cooperative behaviour in children from rural societies as compared to large-scale urban societies (Kagan, & Madsen, 1971; Madsen, & Yi, 1975), others have shown the opposite effect (Zeidler et al., 2016). Often, however, these studies have relied on comparisons of two or three populations and attempts to compare across many different rural and urban settings have been rare (see, House et al., 2013, for an exception). Moreover, the majority of studies has investigated this behaviour in individual or dyadic contexts, but little is known about children’s cooperative behaviour in groups. We, therefore, conducted a cross-cultural study on how peer groups of four children (of similar age and same gender) shared an indivisible resource (a kaleidoscope) in an interdependent social situation. In total, 99 groups of children (N = 396 children) between the ages of 3 and 8 from rural populations in Africa (BaAka: Ngroups = 22; Kikuyu: Ngroups = 20) and South America (Quechua: Ngroups = 16; Wichi: Ngroups = 19), and from an urban population in Europe (Germany: Ngroups = 22) took part in the study. Data collection in an additional urban population (India) is currently ongoing. Groups were observed in semi-structured play-interactions with the kaleidoscope across four trials in total, and their non-verbal play behaviour was later coded from video. Analyses show that children from all five populations took turns playing with the kaleidoscope in the majority of trials (that is, at least two children played with the toy in a trial). While the frequency of trials in which all four children played with the kaleidoscope increased with age for Kikuyu, Quechua, and Wichi children, there was no such age trend for BaAka and German children. Moreover, five- to eight-year-old German children showed the lowest frequency of trials in which all children played (50% as compared to 60-90% in other groups). We also found variation in how children transferred the object to each other with three populations (BaAka, Quechua, Wichi) using giving as the preferred mode of transfer, while German and Kikuyu children used giving and taking transfers equally often. These findings show that children from diverse populations are, in principle, able to cooperate in interdependent group settings, but that age and culture have an effect on cooperation rates. They also question whether the rural/urban distinction is sufficiently fine grained to explain variation in children’s cooperative behavior.

Authors

• Patricia Kanngiesser, Freie Universität Berlin
  Presenting Author

• Esther Herrmann, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
  Non-Presenting Author

• Marie Schäfer, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
  Non-Presenting Author

• Henriette Zeidler, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
  Non-Presenting Author

• Michael Tomasello, Duke University
  Non-Presenting Author