Blakey Kirsten H
Philosophy, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Stirling, Stirling, UK.
Psychology, Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of Stirling, Stirling, UK.
Sci Rep. 2025 Feb 27;15(1):7103. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-91648-y.
Children's sharing decisions are shaped by recipient characteristics such as need and reputation, yet studies often focus on one characteristic at a time. This research examines how combinations of recipient characteristics impact costly sharing decisions among 3- to 9-year-old children (N = 186). Children were informed about the material need (needy or not needy) and reputation (sharing or not sharing) of potential recipients before having the opportunity to share stickers with them. Results indicated that sharing was higher when the recipient was needy and increased more when the recipient had a reputation for sharing. Children shared over half of their stickers with a needy, sharing recipient, and less than half with a not needy, not sharing recipient. Children shared equally with recipients who were needy and not sharing or not needy and sharing, suggesting no preference for either characteristic. To explore the emotional benefits of sharing, children rated their own and the recipient's mood before and after sharing, showing a greater increase in ratings of the recipient's mood when more resources were shared. These findings suggest that children consider multiple recipient characteristics in their sharing decisions, demonstrating altruism toward those in need and indirectly reciprocating past sharing based on reputation.
儿童的分享决策受到诸如需求和声誉等受助者特征的影响，然而研究往往一次只关注一个特征。本研究考察了受助者特征的组合如何影响3至9岁儿童（N = 186）的代价高昂的分享决策。在有机会与潜在受助者分享贴纸之前，孩子们被告知他们的物质需求（贫困或非贫困）和声誉（分享或不分享）。结果表明，当受助者贫困时，分享行为更多；当受助者有分享的声誉时，分享行为增加得更多。孩子们会将超过一半的贴纸分享给贫困且有分享声誉的受助者，而分享给非贫困且不分享的受助者的贴纸则不到一半。孩子们与贫困但不分享或非贫困但分享的受助者分享的贴纸数量相同，这表明他们对这两个特征都没有偏好。为了探究分享带来的情感益处，孩子们在分享前后对自己和受助者的情绪进行了评分，结果显示，分享的资源越多，对受助者情绪评分的提升就越大。这些发现表明，孩子们在做出分享决策时会考虑多个受助者特征，对有需要的人表现出利他行为，并基于声誉对过去的分享行为进行间接回报。
