I’ll Share With You But Only If… The influence of context, communication, and perspective taking on preschoolers’ social behaviours

A key aspect of children’s development is learning how to navigate the social world. To do so successfully, children must be able to adapt their social behaviours to the diverse social contexts and demands that they encounter (Bierman & Welsh, 2000). The current study explored preschool-aged children’s sensitivity to cooperative and competitive social contexts, as well as their ability to flexibly adapt their sharing behaviour across the two social contexts. Furthermore, the current study examined how preschoolers modify their sharing behaviour based on social cues they receive as per communicative messages from their social partner within both contexts. Children (aged 4-6 years) completed a resource allocation task in which they determined who, between themselves and a (fictional) social partner would receive items that were important to winning a game. Participants also “interacted” with their social partners, as they were provided audio messages that conveyed whether or not their partner was willing to collaborate. The task was a 2X2 repeated measures design in which children’s sharing behaviours were evaluated as a function of the social context (cooperative vs. competitive) and the type (team-oriented vs. self-oriented). Verbal responses to social partners’ messages were also examined. Socio-cognitive skills (i.e., theory of mind and executive functioning), which are thought to facilitate children’s sharing behaviours, were also examined. Children were found to shift their behaviour according to the context (i.e., more items were shared in the cooperative context), and the extent to which they were able to do so was predicted by their theory of mind ability. Theory of mind was also a predictor of children’s sharing behaviours in cooperative contexts. Only the youngest age group (4-year-olds), were found to shift their behaviour according to message, although all participants’ verbal responses conveyed a sensitivity to message-type. Finally, executive functioning played a role in children’s sharing behaviours in response to collaborative messages from their social partners

Children's sharing with collaborators versus competitors: The impact of theory of mind and executive functioning

The final publication is available at Elsevier via http://dx.doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2018.08.001. © 2018. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/While children show an appreciation for fairness, their sharing does not always reflect such principles. This work examined how contextual factors (competition/cooperation; self/other perspective) and socio-cognitive skills impact children's sharing. Children (4- to 6-year-olds and 7- to 9-year-olds) set up games played either with (cooperative) or against (competitive) peers. The set up involved allocating resources necessary to completing the task (e.g., blocks used to build towers). Children also completed measures of executive functioning and mentalizing skills. Children who focused on the perspective of their social partner prior to allocating resources shared fewer items than those who reflected on their own perspective. Fewer items were shared in the competitive (versus cooperative) context and younger (versus older) children shared fewer items. Age moderated the relationship between executive functioning and sharing: younger children with more proficient executive skills tended to share more items, whereas this pattern did not emerge in the older group.Funder 1, This research was supported by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Insight Grant awarded to E

The Influence of Context and Player Comments on Preschoolers’ Social and Partner-Directed Communicative Behavior

To successfully navigate their social worlds, children must adapt their behaviors to diverse situations and do so in a fluid fashion. The current study explored preschool-aged children’s sensitivity to a gameplay context (cooperative/competitive) and messages from another (fictional) player (team-oriented/self-oriented) while distributing gameplay resources. To understand children’s approach to social behavior within these contexts, we focused on whether these factors affected 1) the number of resources children provided to the other player and 2) children’s verbal responses to other players. Children (4 to 6 years-old, N = 118) first provided verbal responses to audio messages, then completed a resource distribution task. Children’s verbal responses were influenced by both context and the other players’ messages; however, there was a greater influence of players’ messages in a competitive context. In contrast, children’s resource distributions were influenced primarily by the context (greater sharing of resources in the cooperative context). Children with better ToM showed a greater shift in their distributive behavior across conditions, specifically, distributing more items to the other players within a cooperative context relative to a competitive context. Also, within a cooperative context, children with better EF generated more prosocial comments for the other player. Together, the findings highlight the interplay between contextual and interpersonal factors with children’s cognitive skills for prosocial behavior.</p