Competition as rational action: Why young children cannot appreciate competitive games

Abstract

Understanding rational actions requires perspective taking both with respect to means and with respect to objectives. This study addresses the question of whether the two kinds of perspective taking develop simultaneously or in sequence. It is argued that evidence from competitive behavior is best suited for settling this issue. A total of 71 kindergarten children between 3 and 5 years of age participated in a competitive game of dice and were tested on two traditional false belief stories as well as on several control tasks (verbal intelligence, inhibitory control, and working memory). The frequency of competitive poaching moves in the game correlated with correct predictions of mistaken actions in the false belief task. Hierarchical linear regression after controlling for age and control variables showed that false belief understanding significantly predicted the amount of poaching moves. The results speak for an interrelated development of the capacity for “instrumental” and “telic” perspective taking. They are discussed in the light of teleology as opposed to theory use and simulation.

Preschoolers understand the normativity of cooperatively structured competition

“…When facing a rule-breaking opponent, 3-year-olds focused on the rule breach more for an irrational versus rational opponent. This suggests that very young children might not be able to focus on more than one aspect of competitive games at a time and, thus, do not experience the joint activity as a coherent whole, which might be due to their limited ability to coordinate different perspectives regarding the same state of affairs or their deficiency in executive function skills (Garon et al, 2008;Perner & Roessler, 2012;Perner et al, 2005;Priewasser et al, 2013). The lack of protest against rule breaches of a rational opponent is somewhat surprising given evidence that young children enforce constitutive rules in a variety of contexts (e.g., ; however, in these purely cooperative game contexts, children need only focus on one perspective (the rules) and not on multiple perspectives as in the current experiment.…”

“…So, to engage in competitive game playing by jointly intending to compete in a cooperatively regulated way, a child not only needs to focus on his or her goal to win but also needs to appreciate the opponent's point of view-that is, to understand the opponent's goal to win that is diametrically opposed to the child's own goal to win (Perner & Roessler, 2010;Priewasser, Roessler, & Perner, 2013). If the child egocentrically focuses on his or her own goal only, then the child should applaud an opponent who intends to lose.…”

“…But they might not understand and integrate the two levels involved. For example, they might represent the opponent's individual goal to win without realizing that it is contradictory to their own goal (or that one can see the opponent's goal from different perspectives; Perner & Roessler, 2010;Priewasser et al, 2013). Only if children were able to flexibly form and coordinate normative expectations about both rational game playing and constitutive rules would they demonstrate a full understanding of the dual-level normative structure of cooperatively regulated competitive games.…”

“…Because children's executive function skills improve considerably between 3 and 5 years of age (Garon, Bryson, & Smith, 2008;Zelazo & Müller, 2002), and because competitive games require vigilance about both constitutive rules and the opponent's game-playing strategy at the same time, it is plausible to assume that 5-year-olds might show a fuller understanding of competitive games than 3-year-olds who often have difficulty in coordinating different perspectives regarding the same state of affairs (Perner & Roessler, 2012;Perner et al, 2005;Priewasser et al, 2013). Therefore, a comparison of 3-and 5-year-olds' understanding of the normative aspects of competitive games would be instructive.…”

“…To investigate whether children expect an opponent to follow a rational game-playing strategy, we adapted a simple competitive game designed by Benenson, Nicholson, Waite, Roy, and Simpson (2001; see also Priewasser et al, 2013;Weinberger & Stein, 2008). In our study, 3-and 5-year-olds played against a puppet, and each player could collect disks on his or her stand (henceforth called ''tower").…”