TY - JOUR
T1 - The development of social comparisons and sharing behavior across 12 countries
AU - Samek, Anya
AU - Cowell, Jason M.
AU - Cappelen, Alexander W.
AU - Cheng, Yawei
AU - Contreras-Ibáñez, Carlos
AU - Gomez-Sicard, Natalia
AU - Gonzalez-Gadea, Maria L.
AU - Huepe, David
AU - Ibáñez, Agustin
AU - Lee, Kang
AU - Malcolm-Smith, Susan
AU - Salas, Natalia
AU - Selcuk, Bilge
AU - Tungodden, Bertil
AU - Wong, Alina
AU - Zhou, Xinyue
AU - Decety, Jean
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Elsevier Inc.
PY - 2020/4
Y1 - 2020/4
N2 - Humans are social beings, and acts of prosocial behavior may be influenced by social comparisons. To study the development of prosociality and the impact of social comparisons on sharing, we conducted experiments with nearly 2500 children aged 3–12 years across 12 countries across five continents. Children participated in a dictator game where they had the opportunity to share up to 10 of their stickers with another anonymous child. Then, children were randomized to one of two treatments. In the “shared a little” treatment children were told that another child from their school had shared 1 sticker, whereas in the “shared a lot” treatment children were told that another child from their school had shared 6 stickers in the same game. There was a strong increase in baseline sharing with age in all countries and in both treatments. The “shared a lot” treatment had a positive treatment effect in increasing sharing overall, which varied across countries. However, cross-cultural comparisons did not yield expected significant differences between collectivist and individualist countries. Our results provide interesting evidence for the development of sharing behavior by age across the world and show that social information about the sharing of peers is important for children's decision making.
AB - Humans are social beings, and acts of prosocial behavior may be influenced by social comparisons. To study the development of prosociality and the impact of social comparisons on sharing, we conducted experiments with nearly 2500 children aged 3–12 years across 12 countries across five continents. Children participated in a dictator game where they had the opportunity to share up to 10 of their stickers with another anonymous child. Then, children were randomized to one of two treatments. In the “shared a little” treatment children were told that another child from their school had shared 1 sticker, whereas in the “shared a lot” treatment children were told that another child from their school had shared 6 stickers in the same game. There was a strong increase in baseline sharing with age in all countries and in both treatments. The “shared a lot” treatment had a positive treatment effect in increasing sharing overall, which varied across countries. However, cross-cultural comparisons did not yield expected significant differences between collectivist and individualist countries. Our results provide interesting evidence for the development of sharing behavior by age across the world and show that social information about the sharing of peers is important for children's decision making.
KW - Collectivism–individualism
KW - Cross-cultural development
KW - Dictator game
KW - Resource allocation
KW - Social comparisons
KW - Social decision making
KW - Social information
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85077917384&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jecp.2019.104778
DO - 10.1016/j.jecp.2019.104778
M3 - Article
C2 - 31958667
AN - SCOPUS:85077917384
SN - 0022-0965
VL - 192
JO - Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
JF - Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
M1 - 104778
ER -