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Study When sharing is usually friendship before fairness
Sharing things with other people is not only difficult for many children, but adults as well. However, for most people there is a willingness to give something voluntarily - the only question is, to whom? "When sharing children act on how much they are attracted to another," says the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU) of the results of a recent study.
In many cases, scientific studies have investigated which motives motivate children to voluntarily share with others and which developments are subject to this willingness to share in the course of life. "In the interpretation of the results, however, there is disagreement," says the LMU. While some researchers see the origins of moral considerations here, others emphasize the strengthening of social relationships. The current study by Markus Paulus, Professor of Developmental Psychology and Early Childhood Educational Psychology at LMU, has investigated the motivations for voluntary sharing. The results were also published in the journal "Journal of Experimental Child Psychology".
Above all, children share social relationships, not moral ones. (Image: Oksana Kuzmina / fotolia.com) What motivates children to share??
The experiment was designed to validate the two assumptions - moral considerations and the strengthening of social relationships as a reason for sharing. Many factors that affect children sharing were already known, explains Professor Paulus. For example, children would share with poor rather than rich and more with a friend than with a stranger. According to Prof. Paul, they also pay attention to whether another person has shown helpfulness before. "But we did not know yet what is the decisive factor for children," continues the developmental psychologist. In order to determine the strongest motivation of children to share, preschool children were equipped in several experiments with stickers, which they could share under different conditions and specifications, reports the study director.
Children hand out stickers in the experiment
According to Professor Paulus, the children were divided into two age groups, as kindergarten years are crucial for the development of social behavior. One group included three- and four-year-old children, the other five- and six-year-old children. As part of the experiment, the children should first name the name of a good friend and a child they did not enjoy playing with. Then they drew a picture of both. "Then they were asked to divide their stickers between the two," but the friend already had a brisk booklet of 100 stickers and the other child only had three stickers. "The experiment was to test whether the children were When deciding who to share with, they tend to be more friendship-oriented or how much the other has, "says Paulus.
Social relationships crucial to the willingness to share
According to the study leader, the children had "a strong preference to share with the friend," although he already had numerous stickers. This shows that "the willingness of pre-school children to give something depends primarily on their social relationship with the recipient." In another experiment, the children were asked to split their stickers between a rich friend and a poor stranger. Although the friend always got the most here, the strangers received more stickers than the unmarried child in the first experiment. "So you prefer to share with a stranger than someone you know but do not like," says Professor Paulus. This indicates that they are reluctant to give something to people they do not like. For older children, the trend towards favoring a friend was even more pronounced than for younger children, indicating that "as we get older, social relationships are gaining in importance," says Paul.
Children also share compassion
The study results should be a disappointment for all those who stylize the noble in the child, because children always give their boyfriend more than a poor stranger, according to the LMU. "The results show that fairness is not the strongest motivation of preschoolers. Rather, one has to consider their social relationships if one wants to understand why and how they share, "says Paul. However, further studies are needed because the results could be different if the poor third party makes it clear that he is suffering from the situation. This could lead to the arms getting more, the study leader suspects. Other studies have found strong evidence that "preschool children also share compassion when sharing." In addition, the study says nothing about how the children would behave when it comes to essential needs such as drinking and eating, rather than around sticker. (Fp)