For the Group’s Sake: Children’s tradeoff of their needs versus the needs of their group

• In Event: Poster Session 09
  In Poster Session: PS 09 Topic - Moral Development

Abstract

We depend on groups to survive and thrive, but to what extent do we care about the groups we are a part of? Even young children display a remarkable capacity to act prosocially interpersonally, but little is known about our early proclivity to sacrifice for groups. This research aims to understand how children (aged 4-9) balance their own needs versus the needs of other individuals and groups, and to begin to delineate the limits and potential of children’s altruistic behavior.

To examine children’s willingness to tolerate pain to benefit others, we conducted two preregistered studies. In Study 1 (N = 62 4-9-year-olds), children were told that if they listened to an annoying noise made by a 3D printer for a longer time then the printer would be able to produce a bigger medal. Children indicated how long they were willing to listen to the noise on a four-point scale (1=short, 4= super long, baseline condition), followed by three test conditions in a randomize order. Each test condition varied the identity of the recipient, so that children were listening to the noise to gain a medal for themselves (self condition), another child (other condition), or their group (group condition). Children indicated their willingness to listen to the noise for each condition. We found that children, regardless of age, are willing to sacrifice for themselves (M = 2.91) at comparable rates as for another child (M = 3.03, p = .7573), and at slightly higher rates as for their group (M = 3.32, p = .0328), and at much higher rates than the baseline (p < .0001), Figure 1.

In Study 2 (N = 60 4-9-year-olds), we examined children’s actual behavior in benefiting themselves and their group (i.e., the actual time they listened to the annoying noise) for a baseline condition, followed by the self and the group conditions in a randomized order (i.e., from 0 to 180 seconds). Children listened for the shortest time for the baseline condition (p < .0001). We expected that children would listen to the noise longer to benefit themselves than the group, but we found that across ages children actually activated and listened to the noise for similar lengths for their group (M = 77.25s) and for themselves (M = 64.33s), Figure 2. Moreover, in a forced choice comparison question the binomial test indicated that older children (but not younger children) believed an agent should listen longer for the group than for the self (M = .03, p <.0001).

Our results from the first two studies show that young children are willing to sacrifice for their group, at comparable levels as for themselves. Using a similar paradigm, Study 3 (ongoing, preregistered N=60) examines how much harm children are willing to inflict on others to gain a benefit for themselves. Our research overall illuminates how children balance their own needs versus the needs of the groups that they are a part of, contributing to a better understanding of the nature and potential of our altruistic tendencies.

Authors

• Margaret Judith Wolfson, University of Chicago
  Presenting Author

• Fan Yang, University of Chicago
  Non-Presenting Author