‘No fair, copycat!’: what children’s response to plagiarism tells us about their understanding of ideas

Abstract

Adults believe that plagiarizing ideas is wrong, which requires an understanding that others can have ideas and that it is wrong to copy them. In order to test when this understanding emerges, we investigated when children begin to think plagiarism is wrong. In Study 1, children aged 7, 9 and 11 years old, as well as adults, disliked someone who plagiarized compared to someone who drew an original drawing or someone who drew an identical picture by chance. Study 2 investigated the same question with younger children, focusing on children aged 3–6 years old. Children aged 5–6 years old evaluated plagiarizers negatively relative to unique drawers, but 3–4-year-olds did not. Study 3 replicated the findings from Study 2 and found that children justify their negative evaluations of plagiarizers by mentioning concerns over copying. These experiments provide evidence that, by age 5 years old, children understand that others have ideas and dislike the copying of these ideas.

How Much are Harry Potter's Glasses Worth? Children's Monetary Evaluation of Authentic Objects

“…Prior research indicates that young children don’t yet understand the concept of “the first of its kind” as it applies to biological species (Evans, Mull, & Poling, 2002). Perhaps children likewise tend to assume that present-day objects have always existed in some form, and thus are not yet capable of considering original creations as distinct (but see Olson & Shaw, 2011, regarding 5-year-olds’ recognition of the value of original works). Another possibility is that children only give special value to original creations for items that they care about.…”

Why the designer's intended function is central for proper function assignment and artifact conceptualization: Essentialist and normative accounts

“…Furthermore, just as with objects, stealing does not confer ownership of ideas. Olson and Shaw (2011) provided evidence that by 6 years of age, children showed dislike for characters that plagiarized art drawings, but 4-year-olds did not.…”

“…In this account, the designer owns the idea of the artifact category's function and can control its use. Ownership research has shown that understanding that ideas can be owned emerges at about 6 years of age; later than Please cite this article in press as: Sergio E. Chaigneau, Guillermo Puebla, Enrique C. Canessa, Why the designer's intended function is central for proper function assignment and artifact conceptualization: Essentialist and normative accounts, Developmental Review (2016), doi: 10.1016/j.dr.2016.06.002 the understanding of object ownership (Olson & Shaw, 2011;Shaw et al, 2012). Thus, the preference for the DIF may show itself starting at about 6 years of age, because this preference is the same phenomenon described in studies on the ownership of ideas.…”

“…In contrast, recent research suggests that the ownership of ideas might be an early development in different cultures. In particular, the aforementioned study of Olson and Shaw (2011) found that 6-year-old children disliked characters that plagiarized drawings in the United States, Mexico, and China: three societies that put different emphases on intellectual property protection. An important task for future research is to determine whether ownership of ideas is present in a wider scope of societies.…”

A Review of Literature: Plagiarism in the Papers of Turkish Context

“…This deliberate or inadvertent action is appeared among different education level of students which are at kindergarten (Olson & Shaw, 2011;Yang, Shaw, Garduno, & Olson, 2014); secondary school students (Kam, Hue, & Cheung, 2017); undergraduate students (Arhin & Jones, 2009;Ashworth, Bannister, & Thorne, 1997;Gullifer & Tyson, 2014;Scanlon & Neumann, 2002), and graduate students (Baty, 2001;Love & Simmons, 1998;Morgan & Thomson, 1997). Years ago, Paldy (1996) argues this and points as "won't go away" (p. 1).…”