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Rose L, Kovarski K, Caetta F, Makowski D, Chokron S. Beyond empathy: Cognitive capabilities increase or curb altruism in middle childhood. J Exp Child Psychol 2024; 239:105810. [PMID: 37981466 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2023.105810] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/12/2023] [Revised: 10/22/2023] [Accepted: 10/26/2023] [Indexed: 11/21/2023]
Abstract
Altruistic behavior, which intentionally benefits a recipient without expectation of a reward or at a cost to the actor, is observed throughout the lifespan from everyday interactions to emergency situations. Empathy has long been considered a major driver of altruistic action, but the social information processing model supports the idea that other cognitive processes may also play a role in altruistic intention and behavior. Our aim was to investigate how visual analysis, attention, inhibitory control, and theory of mind capabilities uniquely contribute to predicting altruistic intention and behavior in a sample of 67 French children (35 girls and 32 boys; Mage = 9.92 ± 0.99 years) from Paris and neighboring suburbs. Using a Bayesian analysis framework, we showed that in younger grade levels visual analysis and selective attention are strong predictors of altruistic intention and that inhibitory control strongly predicts altruistic behavior in a dictator game. Processes underlying theory of mind, however, negatively predict altruistic behavior in the youngest grade. In higher grade levels, we found that stronger attention and inhibitory control predicts lower altruistic intention and behavior. Empathy was not found to predict altruistic intention or behavior. These results suggest that different cognitive capabilities are involved in altruistic intention and behavior and that their contribution changes throughout middle childhood as social constraints deepen and altruism calls on more complex reasoning.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lucie Rose
- Integrative Neuroscience and Cognition Center, Université Paris Cité, CNRS, 75006 Paris, France.
| | - Klara Kovarski
- Integrative Neuroscience and Cognition Center, Université Paris Cité, CNRS, 75006 Paris, France; Institut de Neuropsychologie, Neurovision et NeuroCognition, Hôpital Fondation Adolphe de Rothschild, 75019 Paris, France; Sorbonne Université, Institut national supérieur du professorat et de l'éducation (INSPE), 75005 Paris, France; Laboratoire de Psychologie du Développement et de l'Éducation de l'enfant (LaPsyDé), Université Paris Cité, CNRS, 75005 Paris, France
| | - Florent Caetta
- Integrative Neuroscience and Cognition Center, Université Paris Cité, CNRS, 75006 Paris, France; Institut de Neuropsychologie, Neurovision et NeuroCognition, Hôpital Fondation Adolphe de Rothschild, 75019 Paris, France
| | | | - Sylvie Chokron
- Integrative Neuroscience and Cognition Center, Université Paris Cité, CNRS, 75006 Paris, France; Institut de Neuropsychologie, Neurovision et NeuroCognition, Hôpital Fondation Adolphe de Rothschild, 75019 Paris, France
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Hashim N, Fischer NL, Kim EB, Yeung WJJ, Yu R. The influence of socioeconomic status and appearance-reality understanding on pre-schoolers' sharing and generosity. BRITISH JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 2023; 41:325-342. [PMID: 37114745 DOI: 10.1111/bjdp.12451] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/27/2022] [Revised: 04/18/2023] [Accepted: 04/21/2023] [Indexed: 04/29/2023]
Abstract
Prosocial behaviour can be defined as any voluntary action that is performed to benefit another individual. Despite accumulating evidence of the importance of environmental variables (e.g., socioeconomic status; SES), and individual characteristics (e.g., theory of mind - ToM - skills), in influencing prosocial behaviours in young children, it is unknown how these factors relate to the underlying motivations for prosocial behaviours. Accordingly, both extrinsically (sharing) and intrinsically (generosity)-guided prosocial behaviours are measured in this study. We explore the influences of SES and ToM skills on young children's sharing behaviour and generosity, while controlling their age, working memory and language skills. Sixty-six 4- to 6 year olds (Mage = 5.24 years, SD = 0.73) from diverse SES (measured by parental education level) and ethnic backgrounds in Singapore completed tasks assessing the ToM measures of false belief and appearance-reality understanding, working memory, language skills, generosity, and sharing behaviour. The results of hierarchical regression analyses demonstrate that the father's education level and children's appearance-reality understanding were significant predictors of sharing, after controlling for age, working memory, language skills, and the mother's education level. Children's appearance-reality understanding was the sole predictor of children's generosity. Our findings highlight the impact of children's ability to hold different views of reality and their family's education levels on the development of sharing and generosity in early childhood.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nawal Hashim
- Centre for Family and Population Research, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, National University of Singapore, Singapore City, Singapore
| | - Nastassja L Fischer
- Centre for Family and Population Research, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, National University of Singapore, Singapore City, Singapore
- Centre for Research and Development in Learning (CRADLE), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore City, Singapore
| | - Elizabeth B Kim
- Centre for Family and Population Research, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, National University of Singapore, Singapore City, Singapore
- Centre for Research in Child Development, National Institute of Education, Singapore City, Singapore
| | - Wei-Jun Jean Yeung
- Centre for Family and Population Research, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, National University of Singapore, Singapore City, Singapore
- Department of Sociology, National University of Singapore, Singapore City, Singapore
- Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore City, Singapore
| | - Rongjun Yu
- Centre for Family and Population Research, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, National University of Singapore, Singapore City, Singapore
- Department of Management, Marketing, and Information Systems, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong, China
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Ahl RE, Hannan K, Amir D, Baker A, Sheskin M, McAuliffe K. Tokens of virtue: Replicating incentivized measures of children’s prosocial behavior with online methods and virtual resources. COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT 2023. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cogdev.2023.101313] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 03/05/2023]
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Antfolk J, Marklund E, Nylund I, Gunst A. No Signs of Inclusive Fitness or Reciprocal Altruism in Advantageous Inequity Aversion. EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY 2023; 21:14747049231173401. [PMID: 37198896 PMCID: PMC10303545 DOI: 10.1177/14747049231173401] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/10/2023] [Accepted: 04/06/2023] [Indexed: 05/19/2023] Open
Abstract
Advantageous inequity aversion (i.e., the tendency to respond negatively to unfairness that benefits oneself) usually develops in 6-8-year-olds. However, little is known about the selection pressures that might have shaped this phenomenon. Using data collected from 120 4-8-year-old Finnish children, we tested two evolutionary explanations for the development of advantageous inequity aversion: reciprocal altruism (i.e., benefiting from sharing when the roles are likely reversed in the future) and inclusive fitness (i.e., benefiting from sharing with biological relatives that carry the same alleles). We first successfully replicated a previous experiment, showing that 6-8-year-olds display advantageous inequity aversion by preferring to throw away a resource rather than keep it for themselves. Here, this behavior was also displayed in 5-year-olds. Using a novel experiment, we then asked children to distribute five erasers between themselves, a sibling, a peer, and a stranger. That is, an equal distribution was only possible if throwing away one eraser. We found no support for advantageous inequity aversion being shaped by either inclusive fitness or reciprocal altruism. Future studies could investigate costly signaling and adherence to social norms to avoid negative consequences as ultimate explanations for advantageous inequity aversion.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jan Antfolk
- Department of Psychology, Åbo Akademi
University, Turku, Finland
| | - Emmie Marklund
- Department of Psychology, Åbo Akademi
University, Turku, Finland
| | - Irene Nylund
- Department of Psychology, Åbo Akademi
University, Turku, Finland
| | - Annika Gunst
- Department of Psychology, Åbo Akademi
University, Turku, Finland
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5
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Gerdemann SC, McAuliffe K, Blake PR, Haun DBM, Hepach R. The ontogeny of children's social emotions in response to (un)fairness. ROYAL SOCIETY OPEN SCIENCE 2022; 9:191456. [PMID: 36061521 PMCID: PMC9428536 DOI: 10.1098/rsos.191456] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/22/2019] [Accepted: 07/13/2022] [Indexed: 05/10/2023]
Abstract
Humans have a deeply rooted sense of fairness, but its emotional foundation in early ontogeny remains poorly understood. Here, we asked if and when 4- to 10-year-old children show negative social emotions, such as shame or guilt, in response to advantageous unfairness expressed through a lowered body posture (measured using a Kinect depth sensor imaging camera). We found that older, but not younger children, showed more negative emotions, i.e. a reduced upper body posture, after unintentionally disadvantaging a peer on (4,1) trials than in response to fair (1,1) outcomes between themselves and others. Younger children, in contrast, expressed more negative emotions in response to the fair (1,1) split than in response to advantageous inequity. No systematic pattern of children's emotional responses was found in a non-social context, in which children divided resources between themselves and a non-social container. Supporting individual difference analyses showed that older children in the social context expressed negative emotions in response to advantageous inequity without directly acting on this negative emotional response by rejecting an advantageously unfair offer proposed by an experimenter at the end of the study. These findings shed new light on the emotional foundation of the human sense of fairness and suggest that children's negative emotional response to advantageous unfairness developmentally precedes their rejection of advantageously unfair resource distributions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Stella C. Gerdemann
- Department of Early Child Development, Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany
- Leipzig Research Center for Early Child Development, Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany
| | | | - Peter R. Blake
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Daniel B. M. Haun
- Department of Comparative Cultural Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
| | - Robert Hepach
- Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
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Gerdemann SC, McAuliffe K, Blake PR, Haun DBM, Hepach R. The ontogeny of children's social emotions in response to (un)fairness. ROYAL SOCIETY OPEN SCIENCE 2022; 9:191456. [PMID: 36061521 DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.c.6154280] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/22/2019] [Accepted: 07/13/2022] [Indexed: 05/25/2023]
Abstract
Humans have a deeply rooted sense of fairness, but its emotional foundation in early ontogeny remains poorly understood. Here, we asked if and when 4- to 10-year-old children show negative social emotions, such as shame or guilt, in response to advantageous unfairness expressed through a lowered body posture (measured using a Kinect depth sensor imaging camera). We found that older, but not younger children, showed more negative emotions, i.e. a reduced upper body posture, after unintentionally disadvantaging a peer on (4,1) trials than in response to fair (1,1) outcomes between themselves and others. Younger children, in contrast, expressed more negative emotions in response to the fair (1,1) split than in response to advantageous inequity. No systematic pattern of children's emotional responses was found in a non-social context, in which children divided resources between themselves and a non-social container. Supporting individual difference analyses showed that older children in the social context expressed negative emotions in response to advantageous inequity without directly acting on this negative emotional response by rejecting an advantageously unfair offer proposed by an experimenter at the end of the study. These findings shed new light on the emotional foundation of the human sense of fairness and suggest that children's negative emotional response to advantageous unfairness developmentally precedes their rejection of advantageously unfair resource distributions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Stella C Gerdemann
- Department of Early Child Development, Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany
- Leipzig Research Center for Early Child Development, Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany
| | | | - Peter R Blake
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Daniel B M Haun
- Department of Comparative Cultural Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
| | - Robert Hepach
- Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
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Zhu Y, Zhang J, Liu X. Is Distributional Justice Equivalent to Prosocial Sharing in Children’s Cognition? Front Psychol 2022; 13:888028. [PMID: 35903728 PMCID: PMC9315223 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.888028] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/02/2022] [Accepted: 06/17/2022] [Indexed: 11/30/2022] Open
Abstract
Distribution and sharing are social preference behaviors supported and shaped by selection pressures, which express individuals’ concern for the welfare of others. Distributive behavior results in distributive justice, which is at the core of moral justice. Sharing is a feature of the prosocial realm. The connotations of distribution and sharing are different, so the principles, research paradigms, and social functions of the two are also different. Three potential causes of confusion between the two in the current research on distribution and sharing are discussed. First, they share common factors in terms of individual cognition, situation, and social factors. Second, although they are conceptually different, prosocial sharing and distribution fairness sensitivity are mutually predictive in individual infants. Similarly, neural differences in preschoolers’ perception of distribution fairness predict their subsequent sharing generosity. Finally, similar activation regions are relevant to distribution and sharing situations that need behavioral control on a neural basis.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yuning Zhu
- School of Psychology, Northeast Normal University, Changchun, China
| | - Jingmiao Zhang
- School of Psychology, Northeast Normal University, Changchun, China
- School of Educational Science and Technology, Anshan Normal University, Anshan, China
| | - Xiuli Liu
- School of Psychology, Northeast Normal University, Changchun, China
- *Correspondence: Xiuli Liu,
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Li Y, Li P, Chai Q, McAuliffe K, Blake PR, Warneken F, He J. The development of inequity aversion in Chinese children. COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT 2022. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cogdev.2021.101151] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/03/2022]
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9
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Gonzalez G, Ahl RE, Cordes S, McAuliffe K. Children strategically conceal selfishness. Child Dev 2021; 93:e71-e86. [PMID: 34705266 DOI: 10.1111/cdev.13687] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Abstract
Can children exploit knowledge asymmetries to get away with selfishness? This question was addressed by testing 6- to 9-year-old children (N = 164; 81 girls) from the Northeastern United States in a modified Ultimatum Game. Children were assigned to the roles of proposers (who offered some proportion of an endowment) and responders (who could accept or reject offers). Both players in the Informed condition knew the endowment quantity in each trial. However, in the Uninformed condition, only proposers knew this information. In this condition, many proposers made "strategically selfish" offers that seemed fair based on the responders' incomplete knowledge but were actually highly selfish. These results indicate that even young children possess the ability to deceive others about their selfishness.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gorana Gonzalez
- Department of Psychology, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, USA
| | - Richard E Ahl
- Department of Psychology, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, USA
| | - Sara Cordes
- Department of Psychology, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, USA
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10
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Yu H, Lu C, Gao X, Shen B, Liu K, Li W, Xiao Y, Yang B, Zhao X, Crockett MJ, Zhou X. Explaining Individual Differences in Advantageous Inequity Aversion by Social-Affective Trait Dimensions and Family Environment. SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL AND PERSONALITY SCIENCE 2021. [DOI: 10.1177/19485506211027794] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/10/2023]
Abstract
Humans are averse to both having less (i.e., disadvantageous inequity aversion [IA]) and having more than others (i.e., advantageous IA). However, the social-affective traits that drive individual differences in IA are not well understood. Here, by combining a modified dictator game and a computational model, we found in a sample of incarcerated adolescents ( N = 67) that callous-unemotional traits were specifically associated with low advantageous but not disadvantageous IA. We replicated and extended the finding in a large-scale university student sample ( N = 2,250) by adopting a dimensional approach to social-affective trait measures. We showed that advantageous IA was strongly and negatively associated with a trait dimension characterized by callousness and lack of social emotions (e.g., guilt and compassion). A supportive family environment negatively correlated with this trait dimension and positively with advantageous IA. These results identify a core set of social-affective dimensions specifically associated with advantageous IA.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hongbo Yu
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of California Santa Barbara, CA, USA
| | - Chunlei Lu
- Institute of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Zhejiang Normal University, China
| | - Xiaoxue Gao
- School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China
| | - Bo Shen
- Institute of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Zhejiang Normal University, China
| | - Kui Liu
- Institute of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Zhejiang Normal University, China
| | - Weijian Li
- Institute of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Zhejiang Normal University, China
| | - Yuqin Xiao
- School of Sociology, China University of Political Science and Law, Beijing, China
| | - Bo Yang
- School of Sociology, China University of Political Science and Law, Beijing, China
| | - Xudong Zhao
- Pudong Mental Health Centre, Tongji University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China
- Department of Psychology, Tongji University, Shanghai, China
| | | | - Xiaolin Zhou
- Institute of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Zhejiang Normal University, China
- School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China
- Department of Psychology, Tongji University, Shanghai, China
- Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Beijing, China
- PKU-IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Peking University, Beijing, China
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Yang X, Wu Z, Dunham Y. Children’s restorative justice in an intergroup context. SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT 2021. [DOI: 10.1111/sode.12508] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Xin Yang
- Department of Psychology Tsinghua University Beijing China
| | - Zhen Wu
- Department of Psychology Tsinghua University Beijing China
| | - Yarrow Dunham
- Department of Psychology Yale University New Haven CT USA
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12
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Sobel DM, Blankenship J. Perspective taking as a mechanism for children's developing preferences for equitable distributions. Sci Rep 2021; 11:5689. [PMID: 33707538 PMCID: PMC7952548 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-84968-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/16/2020] [Accepted: 02/04/2021] [Indexed: 11/22/2022] Open
Abstract
How do young children develop a concept of equity? Infants prefer dividing resources equally and expect others to make such distributions. Between the ages of 3–8, children begin to exhibit preferences to avoid inequitable outcomes in their distributions, dividing resources unequally if the result of that distribution is a more equitable outcome. Four studies investigated children’s developing preferences for generating equitable distributions, focusing on the mechanisms for this development. Children were presented with two characters with different amount of resources, and then a third character who will distribute more resources to them. Three- to 8-year-olds were asked whether the third character should give an equal number of resources to the recipients, preserving the inequity, or an unequal number to them, creating an equitable outcome. Starting at age 7, children showed a preference for equitable distributions (Study 1, N = 144). Studies 2a (N = 72) and 2b (N = 48) suggest that this development is independent of children’s numerical competence. When asked to take the perspective of the recipient with fewer resources, 3- to 6-year-olds were more likely to make an equitable distribution (Study 3, N = 122). These data suggest that social perspective taking underlies children’s prosocial actions, and supports the hypothesis that their spontaneous capacity to take others’ perspectives develops during the early elementary-school years.
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Affiliation(s)
- David M Sobel
- Department of Cognitive, Linguistic, and Psychological Sciences, Brown University, 190 Thayer St., Box 1821, Providence, RI, 02912, USA.
| | - Jayd Blankenship
- Department of Cognitive, Linguistic, and Psychological Sciences, Brown University, 190 Thayer St., Box 1821, Providence, RI, 02912, USA
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