Overheard conversations can influence children’s generosity

Abstract

Understanding the factors that promote the development of generosity has both theoretical and practical importance. This study examines one potential influence: overheard conversations that contain evaluative statements about the behavior of others that were described as widely shared opinions. In Study 1 (N = 120), younger (mean age 4.1 years old) and older (mean age 5.9 years old) participants overheard two adults discuss a target child's act of generosity, and in a between‐subjects manipulation, the conversation included either praise for the target child, or criticism. Participants in the older group were more likely to behave generously on a distribution task if the overheard conversation involved praise rather than criticism, but the participants in the younger group showed no such effect. Study 2 (N = 150) and Study 3 (N = 60) were preregistered follow‐up studies that included older children only (a 5‐year‐old group). Study 2 showed that children were again more likely to share after overhearing a conversation in which an individual who behaved generously was described in favorable terms, and the same effect was seen when the overheard conversation involved criticism of an individual who did not share. The procedure of Study 3 matched that of Study 1, except the distributions were made in private, and the overheard conversation effect was seen once again. These findings suggest that by age 5, children can use information they hear about individuals who are not present to guide their own behavior, and that overheard evaluative comments can promote generosity.

Messaging about descriptive and injunctive norms can promote honesty in young children

“…Our findings regarding the effectiveness of injunctive norms build upon prior work showing that children frequently adjust their social behavior based on moral evaluations made by others (Qin et al, 2021; Sai et al, 2020). For example, Sai et al (2020) found that 5‐year‐olds were more likely to make an honest confession after hearing an experimenter describe another child who confessed as a “good and honest kid.” The present work suggests that children are responsive to being told that most children think confessing is what should be done in these circumstances.…”

Overheard evaluative comments: Implications for beliefs about effort and ability

“…It is likely that to account for the effects of both high effort and low effort praise we will need to consider how children draw upon their beliefs and experiences to interpret information that is conveyed by others (Amemiya & Wang, 2018; Qin et al, 2020; see also Harris et al, 2018; Marble & Boseovski, 2020). We propose that overheard conversation is likely to change children's beliefs only in a narrow set of circumstances.…”

“…Theoretical accounts of gossip and language socialization (Baumeister et al, 2004;Miller et al, 2012;Sperry et al, 2019) suggest that evaluative comments can be rich sources of social information even if they are not directly self-relevant. In line with this possibility, recent experimental research suggests that young children's moral behavior and beliefs can be influenced by overhearing evaluative comments about others (Lane et al, 2020;Qin et al, 2020;Sai et al, 2020). For example, Lane et al (2020) found that 4-to 9-year-old children who overheard an experimenter making negative comments about a novel social group developed more negative attitudes about the group.…”

“…Our primary dependent measure was the percentage of children who identified the hardworking student as more deserving of a reward, and we estimated it as 75% in the experimental condition and 40% in the baseline condition. These estimates were based on previous findings regarding the effects of overheard conversation on children's generosity (Qin et al, 2020). The analysis yielded a minimum of 30 participants per condition to achieve a condition effect with a power of 0.80, an alpha at 0.05, and an enrollment ratio of 1.…”

Children’s Reputation Management: Learning to Identify What Is Socially Valued and Acting Upon It

“…Children can take advantage of additional low-cost opportunities to learn about what people value by listening to evaluative comments in the form of gossip about others (Baumeister et al, 2004). Recent research suggests that children as young as age 5 already have some capacity to recognize the relevance of these kinds of comments (Qin et al, 2020). Zhao et al (2020) found that children cheated more after overhearing an experimenter praise a classmate for being smart, which could be interpreted as a cue that the experimenter valued displays of intelligence (see Good & Shaw, 2021).…”