Preschoolers’ resource sharing with prosocial and antisocial recipients in need

• In Event: Poster Session 14
  In Poster Session: PS 14 Topic - Moral Development

Abstract

Children begin to share their own resources with others in the second year of their lives. During this period, they share their resources based on the recipients’ expressions of need (e.g., Dunfield, Kuhlmeier, O’Connell, & Kelley, 2011). Recipients’ neediness enhances sharing behavior among preschoolers (e.g., Paulus, 2014), who pay more attention to equality as they grow older (e.g., Fehr, Bernhard, & Rockenbach, 2008). Another line of research has focused on the development of selective allocation depending on recipients’ prosociality. For example, when asked to allocate resources between prosocial and antisocial recipients, 4-and-a-half-year-olds allocated more to prosocial than antisocial recipients, whereas 3-year-olds did not. However, few studies have examined selective sharing behavior by considering recipients’ prosociality in costly sharing with recipients in need. The current study aimed to investigate whether preschoolers selectively shared their own resources with prosocial agents rather than anti-social agents when both recipients showed neediness.
Fifty 3-to 6-year-olds participated in the study and were divided into two age groups: 3-to 4-years-old (n = 27, 12 girls; M = 51.4 months, SD = 5.4, range = 44-59) and 5-to 6-years-old (n = 23, 10 girls; M = 71.3 months, SD = 5.5, range = 61-82). Participants first watched a video in which one puppet displayed prosocial behavior and another puppet displayed antisocial behavior. After this, children were asked to allocate 4 stickers between each puppet and themselves. Before allocation, however, they watched another video in which the same puppets lost their own stickers and expressed feelings of sadness about this. Thus, they could understand that the puppets needed the stickers. Each participant was then asked to allocate the stickers over 2 trials. In one trial, the recipient was a puppet who displayed prosocial behavior and in another trial, the recipient was a puppet who displayed antisocial behavior. After allocations were performed, they were asked which puppet they preferred.
The results of the allocation task are shown in Figure 1. A repeated-measures ANOVA revealed no main effect of age group and recipients. There was a significant interaction between children’s age and recipients (F (1, 48) = 4.08, p < .05). Follow-up analyses showed that 5-to 6-year-olds allocated more stickers than 3- to 4-year-olds when the recipient was prosocial (p < .05). The results of the preference are shown in Table 1. A binomial test revealed a significant difference (p < .05), which suggested that preschoolers prefer prosocial agents rather than antisocial agents. Additionally, there was no difference by age regarding preference for recipient, nor in the relationship between preference and allocation.
In the current study, preschoolers did not selectively allocate resources to prosocial recipients, although they showed a clear preference for them. This result may suggest that they prioritized recipients’ neediness over recipients’ prosociality. It could be considered that, when comparing 3-to 4-year olds and 5-to 6-year-olds, the difference in allocations toward the prosocial puppet might reflect age-related changes in their understanding of equality and sensitivity to recipients’ prosociality.

Author

• Yuto Kumaki, University of Teacher Education Fukuoka
  Presenting Author