Year: 2023
Type: preprint
Abstract: The current studies investigated children's expectations regarding caregiving relationships, specifically whether children expect asymmetrical obligations between parents and children. In Study 1, we asked whether children, ages 5 to 7 years old, would anticipate that parents would preferentially share with their children over other known children (friends) more often than children would preferentially share with their parents over another known adult (a teacher). Children did not expect parents to be more likely to share with their children than children would be to share with their parents. In Study 2 we presented the same children with a slightly different scenario, here someone had something that they could share with someone else who was in need (e.g., was thirsty and needed juice). We varied whether it was an adult who had an item and could share with a child or whether it was a child who had the item and could share with an adult. We also varied whether it was a parent and their child or a prosocial but non-family relationship. Here children were near ceiling levels in their expectations of sharing and did not distinguish between whether it was an adult sharing with a child or a child sharing with an adult nor whether the sharing occurred within family or non-family relationships. Thus we found no evidence to support the hypothesis that children have asymmetrical expectations about sharing behaviors.
Institution: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Language: English
Subfield: Developmental and Educational Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W4389273503