Abstract
Group-based competition is considered to be a ubiquitous social context in human society. However, little is known about its potential effects on children’s prosocial behaviors. To this end, we designed an experiment in which two age groups (2.5–3.5 years of age and 5.5–6.5 years of age) engaged in an intergroup competition task where they did a so-called “game” where each child transferred table tennis balls with a spoon from one container to the other. The non-intergroup competition condition was identical to the intergroup competition condition with one exception—no intergroup competition manipulation was involved. Then, they were required to perform two economic games used to measure their prosocial behaviors. We found that under the non-intergroup competition condition, as children aged, their behaviors tended to be more fairness-oriented (such as an increase in egalitarian behaviors). However, under the intergroup competition condition, children at 2.5–3.5 years of age tended to behave prosocially towards their ingroup members compared with those who are at 5.5–6.5 years of age. The behavioral pattern under the intergroup competition condition reflects strengthening prosocial tendencies driven by the intergroup competition in younger children and simultaneously weakening intergroup competition-driven prosocial tendencies possibly due to the development of fairness-oriented behaviors in older children. Taken together, these results point to the importance of considering the effects of competitive contexts on children’s social behaviors and may have important implications for further research on the role of competitive contexts in the development of human prosocial behaviors.
Highlights
Prosocial behaviors refer to acts that are intended to help or benefit another individual or group of individuals (Eisenberg and Fabes, 1998)
We observed a pronounced age effect: the frequency of egalitarian choices made by children at 2.5–3.5 years of age (82%) in this game was significantly higher than that made by their old counterparts (69%) (Figure 2) (Fisher’s exact test, p < 0.05, n = 250), indicating that children at 2.5–3.5 years of age tend to share their resources with their in-group partners after experiencing the intergroup competition
The weakening intergroup competitiondriven prosocial tendencies may be due to the development of fairness-oriented behaviors in children. These results under the intergroup competition seemed to reflect the strengthening prosocial tendencies towards ingroup members driven by the intergroup competition in younger children and simultaneously the weakening intergroup competition-driven prosocial tendencies possibly due to the development of fairnessoriented behaviors in older children
Summary
Prosocial behaviors refer to acts that are intended to help or benefit another individual or group of individuals (Eisenberg and Fabes, 1998). In our societies, these behaviors are highly valued and are one of the most important markers of competency in children. It has been revealed that prosocial behaviors emerge by the end of infancy in human ontogeny (Zahn-Waxler et al, 1992; Eisenberg and Fabes, 1998; Warneken and Tomasello, 2006; Warneken et al, 2007; Schmidt and Sommerville, 2011; Sloane et al, 2012). The development of such behaviors continues as children gradually mature (Zahn-Waxler et al, 1992; Fehr et al, 2008; Bauer et al, 2014a; Ongley et al, 2014)
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