Abstract
Through the lens of resource control and resource holding potential theory, an investigation was conducted into the effect of resource opponent characteristics on frequency of aggressive and prosocial resource control strategy selection in 4-5-year-old boys and girls. Children (N = 92; 4-5 years old) were asked how they would respond to 12 hypothetical resource holding potential (RHP) vignettes, in which resource control opponents varied in ‘toughness’, ‘physical size’ and whether or not they were accompanied by friends. Girls gave significantly more prosocial responses to the vignettes than boys, and boys provided significantly more coercive responses compared to girls with some differences with age. Prosocial vignette responses were given significantly more frequently when the opponent was ‘not very tough’ as opposed to when they were ‘very tough’. Findings suggest that both boys and girls utilise some form of discrimination when deciding on how to respond to resource competition scenarios and that there are some age and gender differences in their reported response strategies. Findings are discussed in terms of resource control and RHP theory. Future study should investigate whether such differences translate into real-world observed resource control behaviour.
Highlights
Resource control is the acquisition and maintenance of control over a material or social resource and is a fundamental factor in the creation of social hierarchies (Hawley, 1999)
This study aimed to investigate the association of prosocial and coercive resource control strategy selection with the resource contest opponent resource holding potential (RHP)
The significant correlations involving the RHP vignette responses are described below as they are of key interest
Summary
Resource control is the acquisition and maintenance of control over a material or social resource and is a fundamental factor in the creation of social hierarchies (Hawley, 1999). As children enter and progress through preschool and the early years of the education system, social pressures lead to the development of prosocial behaviours such as Resource Control and Dominance in Children cooperation, reciprocity and sharing (Trivers, 1971; Charlesworth, 1996; Hawley, 1999; Roseth et al, 2011) which in turn become key behaviours in attaining resource control, when used in combination with aggression (Hawley, 2002; Pellegrini et al, 2007b, 2011; Roseth et al, 2011; Wettstein et al, 2013). The theory can be applied to human behaviours across the lifespan – not just in young children – with research even linking the impact of insecure attachment to coercive resource control strategies in middle childhood (Chen and Chang, 2012) and adulthood (Hawley et al, 2009; Chen, 2017). To date there is limited research within the framework of resource control theory focussed on early childhood (Pellegrini et al, 2007b; Roseth et al, 2007, 2011; Massey et al, 2014; Massey-Abernathy and Byrd-Craven, 2016)
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