Focusing attention on others' negative emotions reduces the effect of social relationships on children's distributive behaviors.

ABSTRACT: The present study investigates whether directing five- to six-year-old children's attention to hypothetical resource recipients that included familiar and non-familiar people would affect their favoritism toward a familiar person, as reflected in how they allocated resources. In Experiment 1, we instructed participants to give one of several stickers to another person or keep all the stickers for themselves. Under the control conditions, participants more frequently gave stickers to friends than to non-friends. However, when asked about others' emotions, they distributed stickers equally among friends and non-friends. Therefore, focusing on others' thoughts reduced participants' favoritism toward friends. Experiment 2 tested whether focusing on both emotional valences would affect favoriti

SUBMITTER: Cha M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10849392 | biostudies-literature | 2024

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature