Steinbeis Nikolaus, Over Harriet
Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology, University of Leiden, 2333 AK Leiden, The Netherlands.
Department of Psychology, University of York, Heslington, York YO10 5DD, UK.
J Exp Child Psychol. 2017 Jul;159:310-318. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2017.02.001. Epub 2017 Mar 11.
Young children endorse norms of fairness but rarely act on them. We investigated whether a failure of behavioral control can partially explain why children do not share more generously than they do. We experimentally manipulated behavioral control and observed its effects on sharing in 120 children aged 6-9years of age. Using a between-participants design, we presented children with stories in which a protagonist either exerted behavioral control in an unrelated context or not. Following this, children engaged in a sharing task. We found that children who had been read a story promoting behavioral control shared more than children who had been read a neutral story. This effect held over two different types of instruction. Perceptions of fairness, on the other hand, were identical across conditions. These findings speak to the importance of behavioral control in prosocial behavior, and specifically sharing, during middle childhood.
幼儿认可公平规范，但很少将其付诸行动。我们研究了行为控制的缺失是否能部分解释为什么儿童在分享时不够慷慨。我们通过实验操纵了行为控制，并观察其对120名6至9岁儿童分享行为的影响。采用组间设计，我们给孩子们讲述故事，故事中的主人公要么在无关情境中实施了行为控制，要么没有。在此之后，孩子们参与了一项分享任务。我们发现，听了促进行为控制故事的孩子比听了中性故事的孩子分享得更多。这种效应在两种不同类型的指导下都成立。另一方面，不同条件下对公平的认知是相同的。这些发现说明了行为控制在童年中期亲社会行为，特别是分享行为中的重要性。
