Patient children are less likely to share with unknown children

Abstract

Human prosociality is a valuable but also deeply puzzling trait. While several studies suggest that prosociality is an instinctive and impulsive behavior, others argue that patience and self-control are necessary to develop prosocial behaviors. Yet, prosociality and patience in children have rarely been studied jointly. Here, we measured patience (i.e. delay-of-gratification) and prosociality (i.e. giving in a dictator game to a known or unknown partner) in 250 4- to 6-year-old French schoolchildren. We found that sharing with an unknown partner was negatively linked to patience in children but observed no relationship between patience and sharing with a familiar partner. Taken together, our results support the hypothesis that children are intuitively prosocial independent of strategic concerns and that patience is therefore not necessary to act prosocially during early childhood. Future studies investigating whether and why prosociality show a non-linear developmental trajectory across the lifespan are warranted.