Preschoolers and toddlers use ownership to predict basic emotions.

Pesowski, Madison L.; Friedman, Ori

doi:10.1037/emo0000027

Cited by 29 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 29 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Some aspects of children's understanding of ownership are unlikely to reflect social norms. For example, children predict that owners will be upset if their property is lost (Pesowski & Friedman, 2015), even though it is doubtful that a social norm dictates how owners should react in this situation. In general, the social norms account does not readily explain children's awareness of the psychological consequences of ownership, including their abilities to use it to predict actions and knowledge (e.g., Banerjee, Kominsky, Fernando, & Keil, 2015;Pesowski & Friedman, 2018;Pietraszewski & Shaw, 2015).…”

Section: Understanding Ownershipmentioning

confidence: 99%

Young children infer feelings of ownership from habitual use.

Cleroux¹,

Friedman²

2021

Emotion

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

People sometimes feel as if they own items that do not actually belong to them. These feelings of ownership affect people in diverse contexts, and provide a striking example of how feelings can conflict with reality. Across six experiments, we investigated young children's (N = 614) and adults' (N = 243) understanding of these feelings. In Experiment 1, children aged 4 to 7 inferred that an agent who habitually used a publicly owned item would have feelings of ownership for it, and children distinguished these feelings from actual ownership. Experiments 2 and 3 replicated these findings, and also found that children were less likely to attribute feelings of ownership when the agent used the item non-habitually. Experiments 4 and 5 further found that children and adults also distinguish feelings of ownership from false beliefs of ownership. Finally, in Experiment 6, even younger children showed signs of understanding feelings of ownership. Children aged 3 and 4 predicted that an agent who habitually used an item would be upset to discover someone else using it. Together, these findings suggest that young children are aware of the psychological component of ownership. The findings are also informative about their understanding of habits and repeated actions, and the potential for feelings to conflict with beliefs, knowledge, and reality.

show abstract

Section: Understanding Ownershipmentioning

confidence: 99%

Young children infer feelings of ownership from habitual use.

Cleroux¹,

Friedman²

2021

Emotion

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Toddlers succeed in acknowledging that other people own objects (e.g., Blake, Ganea, & Harris, 2012;Blake & Harris, 2009;Brownell, Iesue, Nichols, & Svetlova, 2013;Fasig, 2000;Friedman & Neary, 2008;Ross et al, 2015). But previous findings suggest they are unaware of others' ownership rights (Rossano et al, 2011) or only provide ambiguous evidence for this awareness (e.g., Pesowski & Friedman, 2015;Ross et al, 2015). Such previous findings are in line with the view that children first recognize their own ownership rights, and only later appreciate these rights in others (Goddard & Wierzbicka, 2016;Miller, 2017;Rochat, 2011).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 61%

“…Some further findings suggest toddlers may recognize others' ownership rights, but these findings are inconclusive. First, 2-year-olds show empathy to owners whose property is destroyed (Vaish, Carpenter, & Tomasello, 2009), and they predict owners will be upset if their property is used without permission (Pesowski & Friedman, 2015). However, these findings could result from children grasping the emotional consequences of aggression without an awareness of ownership rights.…”

Section: Young Children's Understanding Of Ownership Rightsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Give and take: Ownership affects how 2- and 3-year-olds allocate resources

Pesowski

Kanngießer

Friedman

2019

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In three experiments, we investigated whether 2-3-year-olds (N = 240) consider ownership when taking resources for themselves and allocating resources to another agent. When selecting resources for themselves, children generally avoided taking resources that belonged to another agent, and instead favored their own resources (Experiments 1 and 2). However, they did not avoid taking the agent's resources when the only other resources available were described as not belonging to the agent (Experiment 3). Children also selected fewer of the agents' resources when taking for themselves than when giving to the agent (Experiments 2 and 3). In giving to the agent, children were more likely to select the agent's resources than resources not belonging to the agent (Experiment 3). These findings show that ownership affects how 2-and 3-year-olds allocate resources. The findings also provide new evidence that 2-year-olds may respect others' ownership rights, at least to a limited degree, though we also consider an alternative explanation for the findings.

show abstract

“…Here we investigate whether preschoolers consider these two facts of ownership when making judgments about other people-we investigate whether they use ownership to predict actions and to infer preferences. We already know that children use information about ownership to judge whether actions are acceptable (Kim & Kalish, 2009;Neary & Friedman, 2014;Rossano, Rakoczy, & Tomasello, 2011), to predict people's emotions (Pesowski & Friedman, 2015), and to infer history and seek historical traces (Gelman, Manczak, Was, & Noles, 2016;Nancekivell & Friedman, 2014b). If preschoolers also use ownership to predict actions and to infer desires, this will reveal further ways they use information about ownership.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Using versus liking: Young children use ownership to predict actions but not to infer preferences

Pesowski

Friedman

2018

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Three experiments show that young children (N = 384) use ownership to predict actions but not to infer preferences. In Experiment 1, 3- to 6-year-olds considered ownership when predicting actions but did not expect it to trump preferences. In Experiment 2, 4- and 5-year-olds, but not 3-year-olds, used ownership to predict actions, and 5-year-olds grasped that an agent would use his or her own property despite preferring someone else's. This experiment also showed that relating an agent to an object interfered with 3- and 4-year-olds' judgments that a more attractive object is preferred. Finally, Experiment 3 found that 3- and 4-year-olds do not believe that owning an object increases regard for it. These findings are informative about the kinds of information children use to predict actions and the inferences they make from ownership. The findings also reveal specificity in how children use ownership to make judgments about others, and suggest that children more closely relate ownership to people's actions than to their desires.

show abstract

Preschoolers and toddlers use ownership to predict basic emotions.

Cited by 29 publications

References 29 publications

Young children infer feelings of ownership from habitual use.

Young children infer feelings of ownership from habitual use.

Give and take: Ownership affects how 2- and 3-year-olds allocate resources

Using versus liking: Young children use ownership to predict actions but not to infer preferences

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About