Give and take: A microgenetic study of preschoolers' deceptive and prosocial behavior in relation to their socio-cognitive development
Early on, young children begin to learn the social skills which will help them navigate through an increasingly complex social world. We explored how deceiving for personal gain potentially interacts with sharing the resulting resources and how they both relate to theory of mind (ToM) and inhibitory...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Elsevier
2022-10-01
|
| Series: | Acta Psychologica |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0001691822002293 |
| _version_ | 1811256390880067584 |
|---|---|
| author | Daniela Teodora Seucan Raluca Diana Szekely-Copîndean Xiao Pan Ding Laura Visu-Petra |
| author_facet | Daniela Teodora Seucan Raluca Diana Szekely-Copîndean Xiao Pan Ding Laura Visu-Petra |
| author_sort | Daniela Teodora Seucan |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Early on, young children begin to learn the social skills which will help them navigate through an increasingly complex social world. We explored how deceiving for personal gain potentially interacts with sharing the resulting resources and how they both relate to theory of mind (ToM) and inhibitory control in 3- to 5-year-old children (N = 92, 43 girls). Children played a hide-and-seek zero-sum game in which they could win stickers if they discovered how to deceive the experimenter. Then they were prompted to share their stickers in a dictator game paradigm. Using a microgenetic design, we tracked deceptive behavior across ten sessions and sharing behavior across five of these sessions, plus a follow-up session 15 months later. Children polarized into a group who never deceived across all sessions, and a group who constantly deceived above chance levels (around 85 % of the time). Sharing behavior was extremely low (under 6 % of stickers) across the sessions. At follow-up, deceptive behavior was above 80 %, while sharing remained at a low level (under 5 %). The novelty of our findings was that children who initially discovered how to deceive shared less than the children who didn't use this deceptive strategy. Nonetheless, this pattern was reversed at follow-up. Furthermore, ToM positively predicted deceptive behavior across all sessions and improved after the microgenetic sessions but wasn't related with deception at follow-up. Implications for enabling children to deploy the growing understanding of their worlds in a more prosocial way are discussed. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-12T17:40:26Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-7df896a67eb34fedb877e03c63624464 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 0001-6918 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-12T17:40:26Z |
| publishDate | 2022-10-01 |
| publisher | Elsevier |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Acta Psychologica |
| spelling | doaj.art-7df896a67eb34fedb877e03c636244642022-12-22T03:22:49ZengElsevierActa Psychologica0001-69182022-10-01230103714Give and take: A microgenetic study of preschoolers' deceptive and prosocial behavior in relation to their socio-cognitive developmentDaniela Teodora Seucan0Raluca Diana Szekely-Copîndean1Xiao Pan Ding2Laura Visu-Petra3Department of Psychology, Babeș-Bolyai University, 400015 Cluj-Napoca, RomaniaDepartment of Psychology, Babeș-Bolyai University, 400015 Cluj-Napoca, Romania; Department of Social and Human Research, Romanian Academy, 400015 Cluj-Napoca, RomaniaDepartment of Psychology, National University of Singapore, 117570 Singapore, SingaporeDepartment of Psychology, Babeș-Bolyai University, 400015 Cluj-Napoca, Romania; Corresponding author at: Research in Individual Differences and Legal Psychology Lab (RIDDLE), Babeș-Bolyai University, 37 Republicii Street, 400015 Cluj-Napoca, Romania.Early on, young children begin to learn the social skills which will help them navigate through an increasingly complex social world. We explored how deceiving for personal gain potentially interacts with sharing the resulting resources and how they both relate to theory of mind (ToM) and inhibitory control in 3- to 5-year-old children (N = 92, 43 girls). Children played a hide-and-seek zero-sum game in which they could win stickers if they discovered how to deceive the experimenter. Then they were prompted to share their stickers in a dictator game paradigm. Using a microgenetic design, we tracked deceptive behavior across ten sessions and sharing behavior across five of these sessions, plus a follow-up session 15 months later. Children polarized into a group who never deceived across all sessions, and a group who constantly deceived above chance levels (around 85 % of the time). Sharing behavior was extremely low (under 6 % of stickers) across the sessions. At follow-up, deceptive behavior was above 80 %, while sharing remained at a low level (under 5 %). The novelty of our findings was that children who initially discovered how to deceive shared less than the children who didn't use this deceptive strategy. Nonetheless, this pattern was reversed at follow-up. Furthermore, ToM positively predicted deceptive behavior across all sessions and improved after the microgenetic sessions but wasn't related with deception at follow-up. Implications for enabling children to deploy the growing understanding of their worlds in a more prosocial way are discussed.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0001691822002293DeceptionSharingTheory of mindPreschoolersMicrogenetic design |
| spellingShingle | Daniela Teodora Seucan Raluca Diana Szekely-Copîndean Xiao Pan Ding Laura Visu-Petra Give and take: A microgenetic study of preschoolers' deceptive and prosocial behavior in relation to their socio-cognitive development Acta Psychologica Deception Sharing Theory of mind Preschoolers Microgenetic design |
| title | Give and take: A microgenetic study of preschoolers' deceptive and prosocial behavior in relation to their socio-cognitive development |
| title_full | Give and take: A microgenetic study of preschoolers' deceptive and prosocial behavior in relation to their socio-cognitive development |
| title_fullStr | Give and take: A microgenetic study of preschoolers' deceptive and prosocial behavior in relation to their socio-cognitive development |
| title_full_unstemmed | Give and take: A microgenetic study of preschoolers' deceptive and prosocial behavior in relation to their socio-cognitive development |
| title_short | Give and take: A microgenetic study of preschoolers' deceptive and prosocial behavior in relation to their socio-cognitive development |
| title_sort | give and take a microgenetic study of preschoolers deceptive and prosocial behavior in relation to their socio cognitive development |
| topic | Deception Sharing Theory of mind Preschoolers Microgenetic design |
| url | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0001691822002293 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT danielateodoraseucan giveandtakeamicrogeneticstudyofpreschoolersdeceptiveandprosocialbehaviorinrelationtotheirsociocognitivedevelopment AT ralucadianaszekelycopindean giveandtakeamicrogeneticstudyofpreschoolersdeceptiveandprosocialbehaviorinrelationtotheirsociocognitivedevelopment AT xiaopanding giveandtakeamicrogeneticstudyofpreschoolersdeceptiveandprosocialbehaviorinrelationtotheirsociocognitivedevelopment AT lauravisupetra giveandtakeamicrogeneticstudyofpreschoolersdeceptiveandprosocialbehaviorinrelationtotheirsociocognitivedevelopment |