At 4.5 but not 5.5 years, children favor kin when the stakes are moderately high.

ABSTRACT: Adults report more willingness to help siblings over close friends when the stakes are extremely high, such as when deciding whether to donate a kidney or risk injury to rescue someone in peril. When dividing plentiful, low-value resources, in contrast, children expect people to share equally with friends and siblings. Even when distributing limited resources-one instead of many-and distributing to their own social partners rather than fictional characters, children share more with kin and friends than with strangers but do not favor kin over friends until 5.5 years of age. However, no study has tested whether children would preferentially benefit kin if the rewards require that children incur a higher personal cost of their own time and effort. In the present experiment, therefore, we ask

SUBMITTER: Spokes AC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6095549 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature