Young children’s reputational strategies in a peer group context

• In Event: 1-141 - Harnessing cognitive biases to promote positive attitudes and behavior

Integrative Statement

Institutions across societies make use of the human concern for reputation to promote prosocial behavior and to lower antisocial behavior. In former cases, when for example charities publish lists of donors, individuals want to stand out and develop a positive reputation. In latter cases, for example when criminal justice systems use public shaming as a deterrent from antisocial behavior, individuals want to blend in in order to not develop a negative reputation. Previous work has shown that young children act more prosocially when they are observed compared to when they are alone (Engelmann et al., 2012; Leimgruber et al., 2012). However, we do not yet know whether children adjust their prosociality in anticipation of the potential future revelation of their behavior, which represents a cognitively more demanding form of reputation management. In addition, it is unclear if children use different strategies in order to appear prosocial and to avoid appearing antisocial.

To answer these questions, we explored whether 4-year-old (N=72) and 5-year-old (N=72) children attempt to develop a positive reputation and to avoid a negative reputation when their behavior could potentially be revealed to a peer group. Groups of four children played a mini-dictator game. Each participant received ten stickers and could donate as many stickers as s/he liked to a different kindergarten. Children were told that one participant’s picture would be displayed publicly among them at the end. This picture could be of the most generous individual (positive reputation condition), the least generous individual (negative reputation condition), or a randomly chosen individual without reference to sharing (control condition).

The effect of condition on children´s sharing behavior differed between age groups. Four-year-old children shared more in the positive reputation condition (x ̅ = 4.6 stickers) than in the control condition (x ̅ = 2.3 stickers), p = < .001, and more in the negative reputation condition (x ̅ = 4 stickers) than in the control condition, p = < .05. Four-year-old children’s sharing did not differ between the two test conditions, p = > .05. Likewise, 5-year-old children in the positive reputation condition (x ̅ = 5.8 stickers) shared more than children in the control condition (x ̅ = 1.6 stickers), p < .001 and more in the negative reputation condition ( x ̅ = 4 stickers) than in the control condition, p < .001. In contrast to 4-year-old children, 5-year-old children also shared more in the positive reputation than in the negative reputation condition, p < .01.

These results suggest that both the prospect of being singled out as the most prosocial as well as the fear of being singled out as the least prosocial served as an incentive for children to be more generous. Moreover, 5-year-old, but not 4-year-old children’s sharing was affected more by the possibility of being singled out as the most generous than being singled out as the least generous member of the group. This study is the first to show that already 4-year-old children invest in their reputation and that by age 5, children flexibly apply different reputational strategies.

Authors

• Jan Engelmann, Yale University
  Presenting Author

• Diotima Rapp, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
  Non-Presenting Author

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

• Michael Tomasello, Duke University
  Non-Presenting Author