Preschoolers' responses to social comparisons involving relative failure

The influence of cooperation and competition on preschoolers' prosociality toward in-group and out-group members

Past research suggests that children favour their in-group members over out-group members as indicated by selective prosociality such as sharing or social inclusion. This preregistered study examined how playing a cooperative, competitive or solitary game influences German 4- to 6-year-olds' in-group bias and their general willingness to act prosocially, independent of the recipient's group membership (N = 144). After playing the game, experimenters introduced minimal groups and assessed children's sharing with an in-group and an out-group member as well as their social inclusion of an out-group member into an in-group interaction. Furthermore, we assessed children's physical engagement and parents' social dominance orientation (SDO)-a scale indicating the preference for inequality among social groups-to learn more about inter-individual differences in children's prosocial behaviours. Results suggest that children showed a stronger physical engagement while playing competitively as compared with cooperatively or alone. The different gaming contexts did not impact children's subsequent in-group bias or general willingness to act prosocially. Parental SDO was not linked to children's prosocial behaviours. These results indicate that competition can immediately affect children's behaviour while playing but raise doubt on the importance of cooperative and competitive play for children's subsequent intergroup and prosocial behaviour.

Dual Effects of Partner’s Competence: Resource Interdependence in Cooperative Learning at Elementary School

A partner’s competence should logically favor cooperative learning. However, research in cooperative learning has shown that a partner’s competence may or may not activate a threatening social comparison and yields dual effects: It is beneficial when students work on complementary information while it is detrimental when students work on identical information. Two studies conducted at elementary school (study 1 with 24 fourth graders working on encyclopedic texts, and study 2 with 28 fifth graders working on argumentative texts) replicated that interaction: Information distribution (complementary vs. identical information) moderated the relationship between partner’s competence and pupils’ learning outcomes. The relation between partner’s competence and students’ performances was positive when working on complementary information, but negative when working on identical information. A third study confirmed that working on identical information led to a competitive social comparison whereas complementary information reinforced the pupils’ cooperation perception. Contributions to cooperative learning research are discussed in terms of the competitive comparisons that may arise during cooperative learning at elementary school.

Culture moderates the relationship between self-control ability and free will beliefs in childhood

We investigate individual, developmental, and cultural differences in self-control in relation to children's changing belief in "free will" - the possibility of acting against and inhibiting strong desires. In three studies, 4- to 8-year-olds in the U.S., China, Singapore, and Peru (N = 441) answered questions to gauge their belief in free will and completed a series of self-control and inhibitory control tasks. Children across all four cultures showed predictable age-related improvements in self-control, as well as changes in their free will beliefs. Cultural context played a role in the timing of these emerging free will beliefs: Singaporean and Peruvian children's beliefs changed at later ages than Chinese and U.S. children. Critically, culture moderated the link between self-control abilities and free will beliefs: Individual differences in self-control behaviors were linked to individual differences in free will beliefs in U.S. children, but not in children from China, Singapore or Peru. There was also evidence of a causal influence of self-control performance on free will beliefs in our U.S. sample. In Study 2, a randomly assigned group of U.S. 4- and 5-year-olds who failed at two self-control tasks showed reduced belief in free will, but a group of children who completed free will questions first did not show changes to self-control. Together these results suggest that culturally-acquired causal-explanatory frameworks for action, along with observations of one's own abilities, might influence children's emerging understanding of free will.

Gender stereotypes are reflected in the distributional structure of 25 languages

Cultural stereotypes such as the idea that men are more suited for paid work and women are more suited for taking care of the home and family, may contribute to gender imbalances in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields, among other undesirable gender disparities. Might these stereotypes be learned from language? Here we examine whether gender stereotypes are reflected in the large-scale distributional structure of natural language semantics. We measure gender associations embedded in the statistics of 25 languages and relate these to data on an international dataset of psychological gender associations (N = 656,636). People's implicit gender associations are strongly predicted by gender associations encoded in the statistics of the language they speak. These associations are further related to the extent that languages mark gender in occupation terms (for example, 'waiter'/'waitress'). Our pattern of findings is consistent with the possibility that linguistic associations shape people's implicit judgements.

Thinking about multiple identities boosts children's flexible thinking

Studies of children's developing social identification often focus on individual forms of identity. Yet, everyone has multiple potential identities. Here we investigated whether making children aware of their multifaceted identities-effectively seeing themselves from multiple angles-would promote their flexible thinking. In Experiment 1, 6- to 7-year-old children (N = 48) were assigned to either a Multiple-Identities condition where they were led to consider their multiple identities (e.g. friend, neighbor) or to a Physical-Traits condition where they considered their multiple physical attributes (e.g. legs, arms). Children in the Multiple-Identity condition subsequently expressed greater flexibility at problem-solving and categorization than children in the Physical-Traits condition. Experiment 2 (N = 72) replicated these findings with a new sample of 6- to 7-year-old children and demonstrated that a Multiple-Identity mindset must be self-relevant. Children who were led to think about another child's multiple identities did not express as much subsequent creative thinking as did children who thought about their own multiple identities. Experiment 3 (N = 76) showed that a Mmultiple-Identity framework may be particularly effective when the identities are presented via generic language suggesting that they are enduring traits (in this case, identities depicted as noun phrases rather than verbal phrases). These findings illustrate that something as simple as thinking about one's identity from multiple angles could serve as a tool to help reduce rigid thinking, which might increase open-mindedness in a society that is becoming increasingly diverse.

Human children but not chimpanzees make irrational decisions driven by social comparison

Human evolutionary success is often argued to be rooted in specialized social skills and motivations that result in more prosocial, rational and cooperative decisions. One manifestation of human ultra-sociality is the tendency to engage in social comparison. While social comparison studies typically focus on cooperative behaviour and emphasize concern for fairness and equality, here we investigate the competitive dimension of social comparison: a preference for getting more than others, expressed in a willingness to maximize relative payoff at the cost of absolute payoff. Chimpanzees and human children (5-6- and 9-10-year-olds) could decide between an option that maximized their absolute payoff (but put their partner at an advantage) and an option that maximized their relative payoff (but decreased their own and their partner's payoff). Results show that, in contrast to chimpanzees and young children, who consistently selected the rational and payoff-maximizing option, older children paid a cost to reduce their partner's payoff to a level below their own. This finding demonstrates that uniquely human social skills and motivations do not necessarily lead to more prosocial, rational and cooperative decision-making.

Four- and 5-Year-Olds Infer Differences in Relative Ability and Appropriately Allocate Roles to Achieve Cooperative, Competitive, and Prosocial Goals

Preschoolers are sensitive to differences in individuals’ access to external resources (e.g., tools) in division of labor tasks. However, little is known about whether children consider differences in individuals’ internal resources (e.g., abilities) and whether children can flexibly allocate roles across different goal contexts. Critically, factors that are relevant to role allocation in collaborative contexts may be irrelevant in competitive and prosocial ones. In three preregistered experiments, we found that 4- and 5-year-olds (mean: 54 months; range: 42–66 months; N = 132) used age differences to infer relative ability and appropriately allocate the harder and easier of two tasks in a dyadic cooperative interaction (Experiment 1), and appropriately ignored relative ability in competitive (Experiment 2) and prosocial (Experiment 3) contexts, instead assigning others the harder and easier roles, respectively. Thus, 3-and-a-half- to 5-year-olds evaluate their own abilities relative to others and effectively allocate roles to achieve diverse goals.

Exploring an Age Difference in Preschool Children's Competitiveness Following a Competition

Literature suggests that resource acquisition compels competition in young children. However, little is still known about the development of preschool children’s competitiveness. In this preliminary study, 166 children (aged 2–4 and 5–6 years) engaged in a dyadic competition which resulted in a winning and a losing group (in a control/non-competition group, participants engaged in a similar task which did not lead to winning/losing outcome), and then experimenters tracked their decisions to compete again with a rival (i.e., an individual they interacted in the previous competition task) and a non-rival competitor (i.e., an anonymous classmate they did not interact in the previous competition task) for a reward, respectively. As expected, results showed an age-related decreasing trend in the percentage of choices to compete with a competitor. However, this age difference was only significant in the control group when participants played with the partner with whom they interacted in the previous game and in the losing group when participants competed with a non-rival competitor. This study contributes to our knowledge of how competitiveness develop in preschool childhood, and calls for further research on the roles of motivation and cognitive control in children’s competitiveness.

When Peer Performance Matters: Effects of Expertise and Traits on Children's Self-Evaluations After Social Comparison

The present research examined the influence of peer characteristics on children's reactions to upward social comparisons. In Experiment 1, one hundred twenty-six 5-, 8-, and 10-year-olds were told that they were outperformed by an expert or novice peer. Older children reported higher self-evaluations after comparisons with an expert rather than a novice, whereas 5-year-olds reported high self-evaluations broadly. In Experiment 2, ninety-eight 5- to 6-year-olds and 9- to 10-year-olds were told that the peer possessed a positive or negative trait that was task relevant (i.e., intelligence) or task irrelevant (i.e., athleticism). Older children reported higher self-evaluations after hearing about positive rather than negative traits, irrespective of relevance. Younger children reported high self-evaluations indiscriminately. Results inform the understanding of social comparison development in childhood.

Do-gooder derogation in children: the social costs of generosity

Generosity is greatly valued and admired, but can it sometimes be unappealing? The current study investigated 8- to 10-year-old children’s (N = 128) preference for generous individuals, and the effects of social comparison on their preferences. In Experiment 1, children showed a strong preference for a generous to a stingy child; however, this preference was significantly reduced in a situation that afforded children a comparison of their own (lesser) generosity to that of another child. In Experiment 2, children’s liking for a generous individual was not reduced when that individual was an adult, suggesting that similarity in age influences whether a child engages in social comparison. These findings indicate that, by middle childhood, coming up short in comparison with a peer can decrease one’s liking for a generous individual.

If 'we' can succeed, 'I' can too: Identity-based motivation and gender in the classroom

Gender matters in the classroom, but not in the way people may assume; girls are outperforming boys. Identity-Based Motivation (IBM) theory explains why: People prefer to act in ways that feel in-line with important social identities such as gender. If a behavior feels identity-congruent, difficulty is interpreted as meaning that the behavior is important, not impossible, but what feels identity-congruent is context-dependent. IBM implies that boys (and girls) scan the classroom for clues about how to be male (or female); school effort will feel worthwhile if successful engagement with school feels gender-congruent, not otherwise. A between-subjects experimental design tested this prediction, manipulating whether gender and success felt congruent, incongruent, or not linked (control). Students in the success is gender-congruent condition described more school-focused possible identities, rated their likely future academic and occupational success higher, and tried harder on an academic task (this latter effect was significant only for boys).

Who is good at this game? Linking an activity to a social category undermines children's achievement

Children's achievement-related theories have a profound impact on their academic success. Children who adopt entity theories believe that their ability to perform a task is dictated by the amount of natural talent they possess for that task--a belief that has well-documented adverse consequences for their achievement (e.g., lowered persistence, impaired performance). It is thus important to understand what leads children to adopt entity theories. In the experiments reported here, we hypothesized that the mere act of linking success at an unfamiliar, challenging activity to a social group gives rise to entity beliefs that are so powerful as to interfere with children's ability to perform the activity. Two experiments showed that, as predicted, the performance of 4- to 7-year-olds (N = 192) was impaired by exposure to information that associated success in the task at hand with membership in a certain social group (e.g., "boys are good at this game"), regardless of whether the children themselves belonged to that group.

Self-development: integrating cognitive, socioemotional, and neuroimaging perspectives

This review integrates cognitive, socioemotional, and neuroimaging perspectives on self-development. Neural correlates of key processes implicated in personal and social identity are reported from studies of children, adolescents, and adults, including autobiographical memory, direct and reflected self-appraisals, and social exclusion. While cortical midline structures of medial prefrontal cortex and medial posterior parietal cortex are consistently identified in neuroimaging studies considering personal identity from a primarily cognitive perspective ("who am I?"), additional regions are implicated by studies considering personal and social identity from a more socioemotional perspective ("what do others think about me, where do I fit in?"), especially in child or adolescent samples. The involvement of these additional regions (including tempo-parietal junction and posterior superior temporal sulcus, temporal poles, anterior insula, ventral striatum, anterior cingulate cortex, middle cingulate cortex, and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex) suggests mentalizing, emotion, and emotion regulation are central to self-development. In addition, these regions appear to function atypically during personal and social identity tasks in autism and depression, exhibiting a broad pattern of hypoactivation and hyperactivation, respectively.

Remembering kinds: new evidence that categories are privileged in children's thinking

What are the representations and learning mechanisms that underlie conceptual development? The present research provides evidence in favor of the claim that this process is guided by an early-emerging predisposition to think and learn about abstract kinds. Specifically, three studies (N=192) demonstrated that 4- to 7-year-old children have better recall for novel information about kinds (e.g., that dogs catch a bug called "fep") than for similar information about individuals (e.g., that a particular dog catches a bug called "fep"). By showing that children are particularly likely to retain information about kinds, this work not only provides a first empirical demonstration of a phenomenon that may be key to conceptual development but also makes it apparent that young children's thinking is suffused with abstractions rather than being perceptually-based and concrete.

The generic/nongeneric distinction influences how children interpret new information about social others

These studies investigate how the distinction between generic sentences (e.g., "Boys are good at math") and nongeneric sentences (e.g., "Johnny is good at math") shapes children's social cognition. These sentence types are hypothesized to have different implications about the source and nature of the properties conveyed. Specifically, generics may be more likely to imply that the referred-to properties emerge naturally from an internal source, which may cause these properties to become essentialized. Four experiments (N = 269 four-year-olds and undergraduates) confirmed this hypothesis but also suggested that participants only essentialize the information provided in generic form when this construal is consistent with their prior theoretical knowledge. These studies further current understanding of language as a means of learning about others.