Poster #52 - Who Makes the Choice? The Influence of Choice Freedom on Children’s Prosocial Behavior

• In Event: Poster Session 07

Abstract

The freedom to make choices (whether one makes choices for themselves, or other people make choices for them) has been shown to influence children’s prosocial behaviors (Chernyak & Kushnir, 2013). However, less is known about whether the relatedness between the child and the adult who makes the choice may influence children’s prosocial behaviors, and whether the way the adult makes the choice (e.g., whether the adult provides a reasonable explanation or not) may have an influence. We investigated these questions among young children (N=154, 4- to 5-year-olds) in China.

In study 1, 70 children aged 4-5 and their mothers participated in the study. All children were administered a sharing task, but they were randomly assigned to one of three conditions where we manipulated who made the choice. In the self-choice condition, the children were told that they could decide for themselves whether to share a sticker to a puppet or not. In the mother-choice condition, the children were told that their mothers decided for them that they had to share. In the experimenter-choice condition, the children were told that the experimenter decided for them that they had to share. We then measured children’s feelings in the sharing task, and measured children’s sharing behaviors in a novel sharing context where children were asked to decide how many stickers (out of 3 stickers) to share with a new puppet. Meanwhile, mothers were asked to fill out a questionnaire measuring mother-child relatedness. Results showed that, although there was no significant difference on children’s sharing behaviors across the three conditions, the strength of mother-child relatedness had a significant influence on children’s feelings in the sharing task in the mother-choice condition (β = -0.54, SE = 0.016, t = -2.488, p = 0.017), but not in the self-choice condition (See Figure 1). Specifically, children who felt more closely related to their mothers demonstrated more positive feelings when their mothers made the choice for them.

In Study 2, we recruited 84 children aged 4-5. We employed similar methods except that we changed the number of the available stickers to 5 to avoid ceiling effect in the sharing task. In addition to the self-choice condition, we had a mother reasonable-choice condition (i.e., mother explained the reason for the sharing choice) and a mother unreasonable-choice condition (mother forced the child to share without any explanation). Results demonstrated that, when asked to share with a new puppet, children in the mother reasonable-choice condition shared more than children in the self-choice condition (p = 0.014) and in the mother unreasonable-choice condition (p = .002, See Figure 2).

In summary, when making prosocial decisions, children feel good both when having the freedom to make choices and when following choices made by adults whom they feel closely related to. Also, providing explanations for choices can guide children to make more prosocial choices in subsequent contexts. The current findings contribute to our knowledge of the influence of freedom of choice on children’s prosocial behaviors.

Authors

• Qinyuan Zhang, Columbia University
  Presenting Author

• Wenqing Wu, Beijing Normal University

• Xin Alice Zhao, East China Normal University