“Who will share with me?”: Preschoolers rely on their friends more than on their nonfriends to share with them

Lenz, Samantha; Essler, Samuel ; Wörle, Monika und Paulus, Markus (März 2021): “Who will share with me?”: Preschoolers rely on their friends more than on their nonfriends to share with them. In: Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, Bd. 203, 105037

Abstract

During the preschool years, children start to share selectively with close affiliates such as friends. However, it is unclear whether preschool children also selectively rely on their own friends more than on their nonfriends to share with them. Moreover, the developmental course of this relationship-dependent reliance is unknown. In the current study, therefore, we investigated to what extent preschoolers rely on their friends and nonfriends to share with them. To this end, we analyzed the choices of 82 3- to 5-year old children by means of a metacognitive opt-out paradigm. Children were led to believe that a friend and a disliked peer have had the opportunity—but have not been obligated—to share a highly valued resource with them by putting it in a box. Children could then choose between the above-mentioned box by their peer and an opt-out box that contained a slightly less attractive but certain item. Thus, children were expected to choose the peer’s box only if they thought that their peer had shared with them. Otherwise, they should choose the opt-out option to maximize their outcome. Our results reveal developmental changes with older but not younger preschool children relying on their friends to share with them and relying more on their friends than on their nonfriends. This highlights the developmental changes in selective reliance over the preschool years and gives further insight into how young children learn to navigate the social world.

• Dokumententyp: Zeitschriftenartikel
• Publikationsform: Publisher's Version
• Keywords: Prosocial development; Sharing; Peer relations; Friendship; Sharing expectations; Cognitive development; Metacognition
• Fakultät: Psychologie und Pädagogik > Department Psychologie
• Themengebiete: 100 Philosophie und Psychologie > 150 Psychologie ; 300 Sozialwissenschaften > 370 Bildung und Erziehung
• ISSN: 0022-0965
• Sprache: Englisch