Short-term direct reciprocity of prosocial behaviors in Japanese preschool children.

Mayuko Kato-Shimizu,Kenji Onishi,Toshihiko Hinobayashi,Tadahiro Kanazawa,Julie Jeannette Gros-Louis

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0264693

Mayuko Kato-Shimizu, Kenji Onishi + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0264693

Copy DOI

Abstract

Direct reciprocity plays an essential role in forming cooperative relationships. Direct reciprocity requires individuals to keep track of past interactions and condition their behavior on the previous behavior of their partners. In controlled experimental situations, it is known that children establish direct reciprocity according to the partner’s behavior, but this has not been verified in real life. This study aims to identify the establishment of short-term direct reciprocity in response to peers’ behaviors among Japanese preschoolers aged 5 and 6. It employs naturalistic observation at a nursery school. In addition, the psychological process for direct reciprocity was examined. The findings demonstrated that after receiving prosocial behavior, the recipient child returned the prosocial behavior more frequently within 7 minutes, compared with control situations; this suggests that 5-to 6-year-olds formed direct reciprocity in the short term when interacting with their peers. Additionally, recipient children tended to display affiliative behavior after receiving prosocial behavior. Positive emotions toward initiating children may have been caused by receiving prosocial behavior, and this psychological change modified short-term direct reciprocity.

Highlights

Cooperative relations between relatives have been confirmed in many animal species
We investigated whether differences were seen between the PP and MC sessions regarding prosocial and affiliative behaviors demonstrated by recipient child to initiating child
This study aimed to investigate whether 5- and 6-year-old preschool children establish direct reciprocity in the short term, using a naturalistic observation

Summary

Introduction

One mechanism that is believed to make these cooperative relationships possible is direct reciprocity, selecting people who have supported you in the past and supporting them in return [1, 2]. For direct reciprocity to be established, the exchange of prosocial behaviors between two individuals—returning prosocial behavior to a person who has behaved prosocially towards you—plays an important role. Direct reciprocity has been demonstrated to function within a cooperative relationship both in experimental settings using computer simulations [1] and real-life [3]. Studying cooperative relations based on direct reciprocity during early childhood will likely make it possible to understand how the capacity to engage in cooperative relationships develops. Several studies have revealed the characteristics of direct reciprocity that young children established

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion