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The early origins of human charity: developmental changes in preschoolers’ sharing with poor and wealthy individuals

Recent studies have provided evidence that young children already engage in sharing behavior. The underlying social-cognitive mechanisms, however, are still under debate. In particular, it is unclear whether or not young children’s sharing is motivated by an appreciation of others’ wealth. Manipulat...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor principal: Paulus, Markus
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4071819/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25018735
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00344
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author Paulus, Markus
author_facet Paulus, Markus
author_sort Paulus, Markus
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description Recent studies have provided evidence that young children already engage in sharing behavior. The underlying social-cognitive mechanisms, however, are still under debate. In particular, it is unclear whether or not young children’s sharing is motivated by an appreciation of others’ wealth. Manipulating the material needs of recipients in a sharing task (Experiment 1) and a resource allocation task (Experiment 2), we show that 5- but not 3-year-old children share more with poor than wealthy individuals. The 3-year-old children even showed a tendency to behave less selfishly towards the rich, yet not the poor recipient. This suggests that very early instances of sharing behavior are not motivated by a consideration of others’ material needs. Moreover, the results show that 5-year-old children were rather inclined to give more to the poor individual than distributing the resources equally, demonstrating that their wish to support the poor overruled the otherwise very prominent inclination to share resources equally. This indicates that charity has strong developmental roots in preschool children.
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spelling pubmed-40718192014-07-11 The early origins of human charity: developmental changes in preschoolers’ sharing with poor and wealthy individuals Paulus, Markus Front Psychol Psychology Recent studies have provided evidence that young children already engage in sharing behavior. The underlying social-cognitive mechanisms, however, are still under debate. In particular, it is unclear whether or not young children’s sharing is motivated by an appreciation of others’ wealth. Manipulating the material needs of recipients in a sharing task (Experiment 1) and a resource allocation task (Experiment 2), we show that 5- but not 3-year-old children share more with poor than wealthy individuals. The 3-year-old children even showed a tendency to behave less selfishly towards the rich, yet not the poor recipient. This suggests that very early instances of sharing behavior are not motivated by a consideration of others’ material needs. Moreover, the results show that 5-year-old children were rather inclined to give more to the poor individual than distributing the resources equally, demonstrating that their wish to support the poor overruled the otherwise very prominent inclination to share resources equally. This indicates that charity has strong developmental roots in preschool children. Frontiers Media S.A. 2014-06-10 /pmc/articles/PMC4071819/ /pubmed/25018735 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00344 Text en Copyright © 2014 Paulus. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Paulus, Markus
The early origins of human charity: developmental changes in preschoolers’ sharing with poor and wealthy individuals
title The early origins of human charity: developmental changes in preschoolers’ sharing with poor and wealthy individuals
title_full The early origins of human charity: developmental changes in preschoolers’ sharing with poor and wealthy individuals
title_fullStr The early origins of human charity: developmental changes in preschoolers’ sharing with poor and wealthy individuals
title_full_unstemmed The early origins of human charity: developmental changes in preschoolers’ sharing with poor and wealthy individuals
title_short The early origins of human charity: developmental changes in preschoolers’ sharing with poor and wealthy individuals
title_sort early origins of human charity: developmental changes in preschoolers’ sharing with poor and wealthy individuals
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4071819/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25018735
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00344
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