Preschool children's evaluations of their own unjustified requests

To make a fair request, requesters should consider the perspective of the requestee and contrast his or her needs with their own needs. Making an unjustified request (e.g., requesting something we do not need but the requestee does need) can induce some negative feelings such as guilt. Here, we inve...

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Autori principali: Waddington, O, Hepach, R, Jackson, IR, Köymen, B
Natura: Journal article
Lingua:English
Pubblicazione: Elsevier 2022
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author Waddington, O
Hepach, R
Jackson, IR
Köymen, B
author_facet Waddington, O
Hepach, R
Jackson, IR
Köymen, B
author_sort Waddington, O
collection OXFORD
description To make a fair request, requesters should consider the perspective of the requestee and contrast his or her needs with their own needs. Making an unjustified request (e.g., requesting something we do not need but the requestee does need) can induce some negative feelings such as guilt. Here, we investigated whether making unjustified requests resulted in negative emotions in 3- and 5-year-old children. Participants (N = 83; 34 girls) requested resources that they did or did not need from an experimenter who either did or did not need them. Both age groups were slower and more hesitant to make an unjustified request (children did not need the sticker, but the experimenter did) and also showed lowered body posture when making an unjustified request compared with when making a justified request (children needed the sticker, but the experimenter did not). Three-year-olds showed more pronounced changes in their posture, whereas 5-year-olds’ emotional expression was overall more blunted. Rather, older children relied more on verbal indirect utterances (e.g., “You’ve got lovely stickers”), as opposed to direct requests (e.g., “Can I have that sticker?”), when making unjustified requests. These results suggest that preschool children already apply impartial normative standards to their requests for help, account for the fairness of their requests, and consider the needs of others when requesting.
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spelling oxford-uuid:71f5dd58-897b-41fd-a60c-6ad60057573b2023-02-09T09:49:09ZPreschool children's evaluations of their own unjustified requestsJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:71f5dd58-897b-41fd-a60c-6ad60057573bEnglishSymplectic ElementsElsevier2022Waddington, OHepach, RJackson, IRKöymen, BTo make a fair request, requesters should consider the perspective of the requestee and contrast his or her needs with their own needs. Making an unjustified request (e.g., requesting something we do not need but the requestee does need) can induce some negative feelings such as guilt. Here, we investigated whether making unjustified requests resulted in negative emotions in 3- and 5-year-old children. Participants (N = 83; 34 girls) requested resources that they did or did not need from an experimenter who either did or did not need them. Both age groups were slower and more hesitant to make an unjustified request (children did not need the sticker, but the experimenter did) and also showed lowered body posture when making an unjustified request compared with when making a justified request (children needed the sticker, but the experimenter did not). Three-year-olds showed more pronounced changes in their posture, whereas 5-year-olds’ emotional expression was overall more blunted. Rather, older children relied more on verbal indirect utterances (e.g., “You’ve got lovely stickers”), as opposed to direct requests (e.g., “Can I have that sticker?”), when making unjustified requests. These results suggest that preschool children already apply impartial normative standards to their requests for help, account for the fairness of their requests, and consider the needs of others when requesting.
spellingShingle Waddington, O
Hepach, R
Jackson, IR
Köymen, B
Preschool children's evaluations of their own unjustified requests
title Preschool children's evaluations of their own unjustified requests
title_full Preschool children's evaluations of their own unjustified requests
title_fullStr Preschool children's evaluations of their own unjustified requests
title_full_unstemmed Preschool children's evaluations of their own unjustified requests
title_short Preschool children's evaluations of their own unjustified requests
title_sort preschool children s evaluations of their own unjustified requests
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