Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany.
Nat Hum Behav. 2018 May;2(5):348-355. doi: 10.1038/s41562-018-0327-2. Epub 2018 Apr 16.
Common-pool resource (CPR) dilemmas are pervasive challenges to overcome. We presented six-year-old children with an experimental CPR paradigm involving a renewable water resource, which children could collect to win individual rewards. To maximize water collection, children had to wait for water to accumulate, without collapsing the resource. We explore the social strategies children used to overcome the dilemma together. Like adults, six-year-old children were challenged by the dilemma: resource sustaining was more successful in a parallel condition in which children worked independently compared with the collective CPR condition. However, children were capable of collectively preventing resource collapse by spontaneously generating inclusive rules, equally distributing the rewards and distracting one another from the delay-of-gratification task. Children also learned to sustain the resource longer in repeated interactions with the same partner. Already by the age of six, children are capable of CPR social strategies resembling those of adults.
公共池塘资源（CPR）困境是普遍需要克服的挑战。我们向 6 岁儿童展示了一个涉及可再生水资源的实验性 CPR 范式，儿童可以收集这些水资源来赢得个人奖励。为了最大限度地收集水，孩子们必须等待水的积累，而不能使资源枯竭。我们探讨了儿童一起克服困境所使用的社会策略。与成年人一样，6 岁的儿童也面临着困境的挑战：在儿童独立工作的平行条件下，资源的维持比集体 CPR 条件更成功。然而，儿童能够通过自发产生包容性规则、平等分配奖励和互相分散对延迟满足任务的注意力来共同防止资源枯竭。儿童也在与同一伙伴的重复互动中学会了更长时间地维持资源。早在 6 岁时，儿童就能够采用类似于成年人的 CPR 社会策略。
