Wu Zhen, Zhang Zhen, Guo Rui, Gros-Louis Julie
Department of Psychology, Tsinghua UniversityBeijing, China.
Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of SciencesBeijing, China.
Front Psychol. 2017 May 31;8:867. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00867. eCollection 2017.
Research has demonstrated that prosocial sharing is emotionally rewarding, which leads to further prosocial actions; such a positive feedback loop suggests a proximal mechanism of human's tendency to act prosocially. However, it leaves open a question as to how the emotional benefits from sharing develop in young children and whether sharing under pressure promotes happiness as well. The current study directly compared 3- and 5-year-old Chinese children's happiness when sharing was autonomous (the recipient did not contribute to getting the reward) with when sharing was obligated (the recipient and the actor jointly earned the reward). We found that children shared more items overall when sharing was obligated than autonomous, demonstrating their conformity to social norms of merit-based sharing. In children who eventually shared with others, 5-year-olds gave out more stickers in the obligated sharing condition than in the autonomous sharing condition, but 3-year-olds shared the same amount between the conditions, suggesting that 5-year-olds adhered to the merit-based sharing norm more strictly than 3-year-olds. Moreover, in the autonomous sharing condition, children displayed greater happiness when they shared with the recipient than when they kept stickers for themselves, suggesting that costly prosocial giving benefited children with positive mood; however, children did not gain happiness when they shared with the recipient in the obligated sharing condition. These findings demonstrate that children's affective benefits depend on the motivation underlying their prosocial behavior, and further imply that normative force and emotional gains may independently drive preschoolers' prosocial behaviors.
研究表明，亲社会分享在情感上是有益的，这会引发更多的亲社会行为；这样一个积极的反馈循环表明了人类亲社会行为倾向的一种近端机制。然而，这留下了一个问题，即分享所带来的情感益处是如何在幼儿中发展的，以及在压力下的分享是否也能促进幸福感。当前的研究直接比较了3岁和5岁中国儿童在自主分享（接受者对获得奖励没有贡献）和被迫分享（接受者和行为者共同获得奖励）时的幸福感。我们发现，与自主分享相比，儿童在被迫分享时总体上分享的物品更多，这表明他们符合基于功绩分享的社会规范。在最终与他人分享的儿童中，5岁儿童在被迫分享条件下比在自主分享条件下给出了更多贴纸，但3岁儿童在两种条件下分享的数量相同，这表明5岁儿童比3岁儿童更严格地遵守基于功绩的分享规范。此外，在自主分享条件下，儿童与接受者分享时比自己保留贴纸时表现出更大的幸福感，这表明代价高昂的亲社会给予使儿童产生了积极情绪；然而，在被迫分享条件下与接受者分享时，儿童并没有获得幸福感。这些发现表明，儿童的情感益处取决于他们亲社会行为背后的动机，并且进一步暗示规范力量和情感收获可能独立驱动学龄前儿童的亲社会行为。
