Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
Dev Psychol. 2019 Feb;55(2):329-336. doi: 10.1037/dev0000639. Epub 2018 Dec 10.
Reputational concerns are known to promote cooperation. Individuals regularly act more prosocially when their behavior is observable by others. Here, we investigate 4- and 5-year-old (N = 144) children's reputational strategies in a competitive group setting. The aim of the current study was to explore whether children's sharing behavior is affected by the future possibility of being singled out publicly as the most generous or, alternatively, the least generous member of the group. Children were told that they could share stickers with other children and that the picture of either the (1) most generous or (2) least generous donor would be displayed publicly. In both conditions, children shared significantly more than in a control condition. Moreover, 5-year-old, but not 4-year-old children's sharing was affected more by the possibility of being presented as the most generous than being presented as the least generous member of the group. This study is the first to show that children as young as 4 invest in their future reputation and that by age 5 children flexibly apply different reputational strategies depending on context. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
声誉问题众所周知可以促进合作。当个人的行为可以被他人观察到时，他们通常会表现出更亲社会的行为。在这里，我们在竞争群体环境中研究了 4 至 5 岁（N=144）儿童的声誉策略。本研究的目的是探讨儿童的分享行为是否受到未来可能被公认为最慷慨或最不慷慨的群体成员的影响。孩子们被告知他们可以与其他孩子分享贴纸，并且（1）最慷慨或（2）最不慷慨的捐赠者的照片将被公开展示。在这两种情况下，孩子们的分享都明显多于控制组。此外，5 岁的孩子，但不是 4 岁的孩子，他们的分享受到被视为最慷慨的可能性的影响大于被视为最不慷慨的群体成员的可能性。这项研究首次表明，即使是 4 岁的孩子也会为自己的未来声誉投资，而到 5 岁时，孩子会根据具体情况灵活运用不同的声誉策略。（PsycINFO 数据库记录（c）2019 APA，保留所有权利）。
