Negative Direct Reciprocity Emerges Early but Positive Direct Reciprocity is Learned Through Social Norms

• In Event: 2-033 - Active and Reactive Roles in Allocation Contexts: Infants’ and Children’s Social Preferences, Biases, and Reciprocity

Integrative Statement

The principle of direct reciprocity (i.e., “You scratch my back, I scratch yours”; “an eye for an eye”), a tooth for a tooth…”) or paying back specific individuals, is deeply embedded within our cultural landscape, and is assumed to be a critical component of everyday social exchange. Though much work has focused on the evolution of direct reciprocity, little is known about its ontogenetic origins. Recent research has found that children engage in generalized reciprocity when partner choice is constrained (House, Henrich, Sarnecka, & Silk, 2013; Leimgruber et al., 2014; Schug, Takagishi, Benech, & Okada, 2016; Sebastián-Enesco & Warneken, 2015; Vogelsang & Tomasello, 2016) – that is, children pay forwards good and bad acts by repeating actions that were previously done to them. However, testing direct reciprocity requires a choice of multiple recipients in order to demonstrate that actions are targeted towards specific individuals.
Across five studies (N=330), we investigated the development of direct reciprocity in 4- to 8-year-olds. Using a novel computerized task (Figure 1), children choose an avatar and interacted with four other children (represented by avatars). In Studies 1 and 2, children either received a sticker (Giving condition) or had one of their stickers taken (Stealing condition) by one of the four players. Children could then reciprocate the action. In the Giving condition, children received a new sticker from the experimenter that they could then give to one of other participants; in the Stealing condition, children saw the other recipients receive a new sticker that they could then steal. Our main analyses focused on whether children directly reciprocated towards the prior benefactor or malefactor. Strikingly, in both studies (Study 1 N = 80; Study 2 N = 85), we saw no evidence of positive direct reciprocity (giving to the benefactor), but did see evidence of negative direct reciprocity (taking from the malefactor). See Figure 2.
The next three studies examined positive direct reciprocity in more detail. In Study 3 (N = 40), we found that enhancing group membership cues (i.e., making benefactors group members) did not enhance positive reciprocity. In Study 4 (N = 51), we found that children did not understand the norm of positive reciprocity until at least 7 years of age. Given that children seemed to lack an awareness of a norm of positive direct reciprocity, in Study 5 (N = 74) children were given a brief Norm Training, which introduced the norm in both descriptive and prescriptive terms, and then received the Giving task. Children in the Norm Training condition were more likely to engage in positive direct reciprocity compared to a control condition.
Combined, these results reveal a dissociation in the development of positive and negative direct reciprocity. By 4 years of age, children engage in negative direct reciprocity but positive direct reciprocity undergoes a protracted developmental timeline. Rather, children lack an awareness of a normative obligation to return favors to a benefactor, and this norm appears to be socially learned.

Authors

• Nadia Chernyak, University of California - Irvine
  Presenting Author

• Kristin L. Leimgruber, Franklin & Marshall College
  Non-Presenting Author

• Yarrow Dunham, Yale
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jingshi Hu, Boston University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Peter R Blake, Boston University
  Non-Presenting Author