The interplay between sharing behavior and beliefs about others in children during dictator games

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2017.08.016Get rights and content

Highlights

  • In children sharing behavior and beliefs about others are positively related.

  • Knowing on a recipient’s behavior affects sharing behavior in older children.

  • Knowing on a forced recipient’s behavior only affect beliefs in younger children.

  • We highlighted the importance of beliefs on children’s prosocial behavior.

Abstract

Previous studies in adults demonstrated that beliefs and sharing decisions in social scenarios are closely related. However, to date, little is known about the development of this relationship in children. By using a modified dictator game, we assessed sharing behavior and beliefs about others in children between 3 and 12 years old. We performed four studies (N = 376) aimed to assess whether decisions were related to beliefs (Studies 1 and 2) and whether information about the recipient’s forced sharing behavior would shape decisions and beliefs (Studies 3 and 4). Results of Studies 1 and 2 showed that beliefs about others’ generosity were related to children’s sharing behavior. In Studies 3 and 4, we found that only children older than 9 years shared more pieces of candy when they knew that the recipient would be forced to share (cooperative context) than when they knew that the recipient would be forced not to share (noncooperative context). Besides, children older than 6 years did not modify their beliefs about others’ generosity according to these social contexts. These results suggest that normative or preconceived beliefs about the functioning of the social world may guide social behavior in children.

Introduction

Social behaviors such as altruism, aversion to inequality, and reciprocity are deeply rooted in human cognitive systems and are critical to the maintenance of cooperation (Almås et al., 2010, Lieberman, 2007, Moore, 2009, Morelli et al., 2014). Different studies in adults have demonstrated that beliefs and predictions about others’ actions influence social decisions (Akerlof and Dickens, 1982, Caprara and Steca, 2005, Di Tella et al., 2015, Moll et al., 2006, Piff et al., 2010). For instance, an individual who interacts with another tends to generate beliefs about the other’s altruism to guide future actions, and in turn the outcome of this interaction updates his or her beliefs (Caprara and Steca, 2005, Costa-Gomes et al., 2014, Smith, 2013). Decisions and beliefs in adults seem to be intermingled, for example, in circumstances where individuals need to justify unfair decisions. Di Tella et al. (2015) showed that when adults faced the opportunity to be ungenerous, they took the chance and thought that their partners were corrupt. In other words, they adjusted their beliefs about others to justify their unfair decisions. Overall, these studies support the presence of a closed loop in which beliefs and decisions are dynamically intertwined; beliefs about others guide choices, which in turn may modify beliefs (Costa-Gomes et al., 2014, de Oliveira et al., 2016, Di Tella et al., 2015, Smith, 2013).

In the current study, we aimed to examine the relationship between sharing behavior and beliefs about others’ generous behavior in children. Although little is known about the development of this relationship, there are some studies that indirectly support an association between social behavior and beliefs in children. Findings of studies in developmental social psychology have suggested that cognitive schemas about the functioning of the social world regulate children’s behavior (Guerra et al., 2003, Huesmann and Guerra, 1997). These social-cognitive schemas are based on children’s social experiences and can modulate children’s social behavior and beliefs (Guerra et al., 2003, Huesmann and Guerra, 1997, Tomasello and Vaish, 2013, Van Overwalle, 2009). For instance, children who act aggressively toward others might have previously experienced a threatening context, and hence they believe that others might be aggressive toward them (Guerra et al., 2003, Huesmann and Guerra, 1997). Another group of studies has demonstrated children could use beliefs to justify their decisions. Evans and Lee (2014) showed that children who had cheated and lied believed that other children would lie too and, conversely, children who had not cheated were biased toward judging their peers as honest. Similarly, some authors have found that children tend to blame others for initiating conflict before accepting responsibility themselves, a phenomenon called self-serving bias (Kearns and Fincham, 2005, Miller and Ross, 1975, Shalvi et al., 2015, Vonk, 2002).

Continuing with this line of research, we examined whether children who are generous think that others are generous too and whether children who are selfish think that others are selfish too. We also explored to what extent information about others’ forced altruistic and nonaltruistic behavior could modify children’s decisions and beliefs. We performed four studies in which children between 3 and 12 years old played a modified dictator game (DG) adapted to children (Forsythe, Horowitz, Savin, & Sefton, 1994). In the DG, children were invited to share pieces of candy with an unknown recipient from another school. Participants were told that they participate only as allocators and that they should not assume a recipient role. After sharing, we inquired about participants’ beliefs on the future sharing behavior of the unknown recipient when they played the same game (Studies 1, 3, and 4), a group of children from another school who would receive the pieces of candy (Study 2), and other children in general from the same school and other schools (Study 2).

We expected a positive relationship between sharing behavior and beliefs about others’ behavior; that is, the more generous participants (children who shared more pieces of candy in the DG) would evaluate other children as generous, and the less generous participants would believe that other children would be less generous.

In Studies 3 and 4, we explored to what extent social contextual information on forced sharing behavior of the recipient would modify participants’ decisions and beliefs. In these studies, participants were randomly assigned to two task conditions that varied in the information about forced social context: (a) a forced-cooperative condition in which participants were told that the future recipient must share their pieces of candy because teachers from this school oblige them to share their belongings and resources or (b) a forced-noncooperative condition in which children were informed that the recipient must not share his or her pieces of candy due to teachers from this school who did not allow children to share their belongings and resources. Given that previous studies showed that children tended to distribute more resources to those who have cooperated or who have behaved in a prosocial way before (Hamann et al., 2011, Levitt et al., 1985, Ng et al., 2011), we expected that participants would share more pieces of candy in the cooperative condition than in the noncooperative condition irrespective of imposed behavior on the recipient. After sharing in each condition, participants were asked how they thought the recipient would actually act if he or she were free to share. In other words, participants were required to imagine the recipient’s real desires and behavior beyond teachers’ demands. If children act according to their normative beliefs and preconceived ideas about the functioning of the social world (Guerra et al., 2003, Huesmann and Guerra, 1997), we expected that participants would not differ in their beliefs about the recipient’s generosity between conditions; that is, they would respond by imagining the real recipient’s desires beyond teachers’ impositions. In Study 4, we also examined to what extent beliefs about others’ generosity before sharing (prior beliefs) would guide behavior. To this aim, we asked about participants’ beliefs before children were randomly assigned to each social condition (i.e., cooperative or noncooperative). If children act according their normative or preconceived beliefs, we expected that (a) prior beliefs would be associated with participants’ sharing behavior and (b) prior beliefs and beliefs after sharing would be similar.

Section snippets

Study 1

To examine the relationship between sharing behavior and beliefs about others’ generous behavior, children played a DG in which they were required to freely share pieces of candy with an unknown recipient from another school. Afterward, participants were asked how they thought the recipient would act if they were to play the DG with an unknown third person (recipient’s sharing behavior) and what they thought about the recipient’s kindness.

Study 2

Here, we examined to what extent sharing behavior and beliefs about others’ generosity would be associated when participants need to share with an unknown group of children from another school (instead of a single individual recipient) and also when they need to imagine the hypothetical generosity of children in general, that is, children from the same participant’s school and children from other schools.

Study 3

In this between-participant study, we explored to what extent children’s decisions in the DG and beliefs would change when participants were informed of the future recipient’s sharing behavior. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: (a) a forced-cooperative condition (before sharing the pieces of candy, participants were informed that the future recipient would be forced to share the pieces of candy he or she would receive) and (b) a forced-noncooperative condition

Study 4

In this study, we examined beliefs about others’ generosity before participants were assigned to the social contextual conditions of Study 3. We examined to what extent these prior beliefs were associated with participants’ sharing behavior and whether the prior beliefs were similar to the beliefs after sharing.

General discussion

In this work, we showed that sharing behavior was tightly associated with beliefs about others’ generous behavior and kindness in children between 3 and 12 years old. In addition, we showed that the information on the recipient’s generous behavior affected children’s sharing behavior, but not beliefs about others’ generosity, only in 9- to 12-year-olds.

Studies from different disciplines such as economics, social psychology, and experimental psychology have established that social behavior is

Acknowledgments

We thank Mariela Caputo, Dialogos Emprendimientos Educativos, Colegio San Carlos in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Colegio “El Carmelo” and Gimnasio Nueva Modelia in Bogotá, Colombia, for help with the sample recruitment. We thank José Alejandro Santamaría-García, Irina Aragón, Paula Agüero, Antonella Dominguez, Camila Sturla, and Lara Sbdar for help with data collection. We also thank Veronica Ramenzoni for revising the manuscript. This work was supported by grants from CONICET, CONICYT/FONDECYT

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