Diverse ontogenies of reciprocal and prosocial behavior: cooperative development in Fiji and the United States

House, Bailey R.

doi:10.1111/desc.12466

Cited by 16 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 66 publications

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“…The observed difference is predictable from the cultural orientation of individualism‐collectivism, yet the specific nature of cultural processes requires further investigation. Our findings contribute to ongoing discussions of the processes that underlie both uniformity and diversity in prosocial behavior across societies and social cultural contexts (de Guzman, Do, & Kok, ; Feygina & Henry, ; House et al, ; House, ; Schäfer, Haun, & Tomasello, ).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 58%

‘She is looking at me! Shall I share?’ How Chinese and American preschoolers respond to eye gaze during sharing

Chen

Gros‐Louis

et al. 2018

Social Development

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Previous research shows that the recipient's verbal communication about desires increases young children's sharing behavior. The current study examined how an adult partner's non-verbal communication through eye gaze influenced sharing behavior in children from different cultures. We presented one hundred forty-six 3-to 5-year-old American and Chinese children with a Dictator Game, in which they were asked to distribute resources between themselves and an experimenter. Children were randomly assigned to three conditions, in which the experimenter alternated her gaze between the child and the items that she wanted, or looked randomly around the room, or left when the child made decisions about sharing but claimed to come back later.Results showed that Chinese children shared more than American children did in the alternating-gaze condition, but not in the other two conditions; furthermore, the experimenter's alternating gaze influenced Chinese children to be more generous, but had no significant effect on American children. This suggests that compared to American children, Chinese children may be more compliant with others' requests communicated through a subtle cue of eye gaze. The study demonstrates important differences in sharing behaviors between American and Chinese preschoolers, and these differences are consistent with the cultural constructs of individualism and collectivism. K E Y W O R D S cross-cultural differences, eye gaze, non-verbal communication, preschooler, sharing behavior | I NTR OD U CTI ONA large body of evidence shows that people not only care about their own well-being, as assumed in classic economics, but they also show prosocial behavior that benefits others, such as helping, collaboration, comforting, and sharing (

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 58%

‘She is looking at me! Shall I share?’ How Chinese and American preschoolers respond to eye gaze during sharing

Chen

Gros‐Louis

et al. 2018

Social Development

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“…Children's bias towards punishing selfish third parties increased during middle childhood, and this developmental pattern is similar across societies. Middle childhood is also when children across diverse societies become more prosocial [12,20,38,39] and more averse to advantageous inequity [40]. This raises the possibility that prosociality, advantageous inequity aversion and TPP may be developmentally coupled.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social norms and cultural diversity in the development of third-party punishment

et al. 2020

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Human cooperation is probably supported by our tendency to punish selfishness in others. Social norms play an important role in motivating third-party punishment (TPP), and also in explaining societal differences in prosocial behaviour. However, there has been little work directly linking social norms to the development of TPP across societies. In this study, we explored the impact of normative information on the development of TPP in 603 children aged 4–14, across six diverse societies. Children began to perform TPP during middle childhood, and the developmental trajectories of this behaviour were similar across societies. We also found that social norms began to influence the likelihood of performing TPP during middle childhood in some of these societies. Norms specifying the punishment of selfishness were generally more influential than norms specifying the punishment of prosocial behaviour. These findings support the view that TPP of selfishness is important in all societies, and its development is shaped by a shared psychology for responding to normative information. Yet, the results also highlight the important role that children's prior knowledge of local norms may play in explaining societal variation in the development of both TPP and prosociality.

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“…It is more plausible that the lack of face-toface contact with a partner in our study reduced social factors, such as empathy 33 and a desire to interact with others 34 , factors that are more likely to motivate prosociality at this age. Future work should directly compare the influence of these factors (as well as motivations such as strategic reciprocity 23,[35][36][37] , kin biases 38 , and group biases 39 ) with the influence of norms on costly prosocial behavior in early and middle childhood.…”

Section: Society-level Beliefs About What Is Correct)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Interestingly, this is the same age that societal variation in children's prosocial choices appears to emerge in costly sharing tasks (i.e. tasks which involve a choice between outcomes that benefit oneself and outcomes that benefit others) 15,[21][22][23][24] . These findings suggest that middle childhood is a particularly important period for the adoption of locally-appropriate prosocial behaviors, and this could be the product of children's increasing responsiveness to social norms at this age.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Universal norm psychology leads to societal diversity in prosocial behaviour and development

et al. 2019

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Recent work has proposed that social norms play a key role in motivating human cooperation, and in explaining the unique scale and cultural diversity of our prosociality. However, there has been little work directly linking social norms to the form, development, and variation in prosocial behavior across societies. In a cross-cultural study of eight diverse societies, we provide evidence that (1) adults' prosocial behavior is predicted by what other members of their society judge to be the correct social norm, (2) children's responsiveness to novel social norms develops similarly across societies, and (3) societally-variable prosocial behavior develops concurrently with children's responsiveness to norms in middle childhood. These data support the view that the development of prosocial behavior is shaped by a psychology for responding to normative information, which itself develops universally across societies.

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Diverse ontogenies of reciprocal and prosocial behavior: cooperative development in Fiji and the United States

Cited by 16 publications

References 66 publications

‘She is looking at me! Shall I share?’ How Chinese and American preschoolers respond to eye gaze during sharing

‘She is looking at me! Shall I share?’ How Chinese and American preschoolers respond to eye gaze during sharing

Social norms and cultural diversity in the development of third-party punishment

Universal norm psychology leads to societal diversity in prosocial behaviour and development

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