The Development of the Better than Average Effect in children's Evaluations of Prosocial Behavior

• In Event: Young children's moral judgements and prosocial behaviors

Abstract

Social comparison serves as input for self-evaluations already at early ages—even when not expressed explicitly—and plays a key role in the construction of the self during childhood (Harter, 2015). One domain in which social comparisons are especially important is prosocial behavior—since children’s behavior in this domain may have implications for their adaptive integration in their society, allowing children to gain a positive reputation and meet society’s anticipations. Because of the great importance society attributes to prosocial behavior, children increasingly become aware of such behaviors and they may compare themselves in that respect with other children in their surroundings. Given their understanding of the importance of being prosocial, they may use adaptive, yet biased perceptions of their relative prosociality—much like adults. The Better than Average (BTA) effect refers to a particular type of social comparison, in which people compare their characteristics or behaviors to a given norm or standard, which is usually the average standing of their peers in that regard. However, the development of this bias in childhood, and specifically in the context of prosociality, is yet to be examined. In this project we examined the development of children’s self-evaluation of their prosociality in normative social comparisons (with an average peer), among three age groups (first, third and six grades, age range 6-12). In Study 1 (N=161), we examined children’s self-evaluation of their prosociality, in comparison with their evaluations of an average peer, when thinking about this trait abstractly, i.e., without reference to an immediate experience. In Study 2 (N=176) we examined children’s actual sharing (in a dictator game) versus their evaluations of other children’s sharing, while considering their perceptions of task difficulty. Finally, in Study 3 (N=56) we examined first graders' actual sharing while manipulating the difficulty of sharing (sharing attractive vs. less attractive stickers). Results suggest that when comparing themselves with an average other in the abstract (i.e., without reference to actual behavior), elementary school children demonstrated the Better than Average effect (BTA) of perceiving themselves as more prosocial than their average peer (Study 1). However, when they evaluated other children’s prosociality (sharing), after experiencing an actual opportunity to share their endowment with others (Studies 2 & 3), the younger children (at first grade level) exhibited the Worse than Average effect (WTA), in that they assumed that their peers would act more generously than themselves. Task difficulty predicted relative self-evaluations across all examined ages, such that greater difficulty was related to a lower BTA effect (or greater WTA effect). However, while older children used abstract difficulty perceptions to evaluate themselves relative to others, the younger children’s evaluations were affected only by the difficulty that they themselves experienced, such that they rated others as more prosocial than them, especially after experiencing an actual difficulty to share.

Authors

• Hagit Sabato, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
  Presenting Author

• Bar Levy, Ben-Gurion University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Yoella Bereby Meyer, Ben-Gurion University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Tehila Kogut, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
  Non-Presenting Author