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Friendship is an important aspect of children's social lives. However, little is known about how it influences children's fairness behavior towards their peers. We tested (N = 183) pairs of children between 7 and 9 years of age from rural communities in India, Peru and Canada that are known to have divergent norms of fairness. Participants were paired with either a close friend or an acquaintance and could accept or reject different allocations of valuable resources. We experimentally compared children's responses to disadvantageous allocations (less for self) and advantageous allocations (more for self). Results showed that across the three societies children were more likely to reject disadvantageous allocations when they were paired with a friend relative to an acquaintance. When they stood to gain a relative advantage, children in Canada and to some extent Peru were more likely to reject advantageous allocations with friends, yet children in India rejected these offers rarely regardless of who they were paired with. These findings suggest that friendship may shape the expression of fairness concerns in young children, though its influence varies across societies. • We explored how friendship influences children's fairness behavior in three diverse cultural groups. • In samples from Peru and Canada, children were averse to having more resources than a friend. • In India, friendship did not affect children's tolerance of having more resources. • Across societies, children were averse to having fewer resources than a peer, especially when the peer was their friend. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2010.08.008 Byline: Julia R. Greenberg (a), Katharina Hamann (a), Felix Warneken (b), Michael Tomasello (a) Abstract: Chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes, help others in a variety of contexts. Some researchers have claimed that this only occurs when food is not involved and the recipient actively solicits help. In the current study, however, we found that chimpanzees often helped conspecifics obtain food in a pulling task with no solicitation whatsoever, in a situation in which, based on past experience, the conspecific's desire for the food was apparent. We also assessed whether the collaborative context of the situation impacted helping rates. Specifically, we compared how often both partners obtained rewards when one partner needed the help of the other, who had already received a reward for free (helping without collaboration), and when one partner needed the other's help after they had already begun collaborating (helping during collaboration). Partners provided assistance significantly more often in both of these helping conditions than in a control condition in which partners could provide unneeded help. However, unlike human children who have been tested in a similar task, chimpanzees did not help their partner more during (than without) collaboration. These results suggest that chimpanzees' helping behaviour is more robust than previously believed, but at the same time may have different evolutionary roots from the helping behaviour of humans. Author Affiliation: (a) Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Germany (b) Department of Psychology, Harvard University, U.S.A. Article History: Received 20 April 2010; Revised 7 June 2010; Accepted 3 August 2010 Article Note: (miscellaneous) MS. number: 10-00271R

Individuals can gain high social rank through dominance (based on coercion and fear) and prestige (based on merit and admiration). We conducted a cross-cultural developmental study and tested 5- to 12-year-olds, and adults in the UK and China, aiming to determine (a) the age at which children distinguish dominance and prestige, and (b) the influence of cultural values on rank-related reasoning. We specifically tested participants in China because of the value of prestigious individuals modestly yielding to subordinates, a social skill that becomes more salient with age. In both populations, the distinction between dominance and prestige emerged at five years, and improved over childhood. When reasoning about a resource conflict between a high-ranking party and a subordinate, adults in both countries expected high-rank individuals to win, although Chinese adults were less likely to do so regarding prestigious individuals. Across the two countries, younger children (5–7 years) responded similarly to each other, not favoring either party as the winner. Older children (9–12 years), however, diverged. Those in the UK chose the high-rank party, while those in China made no systematic inference. Overall, our findings suggest that while children distinguish prestige and dominance comparably in the two countries, they develop culturally-influenced expectations about the behavior of high-rank individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Help-seeking can be costly, particularly when help is not truly needed. Children typically seek help after encountering difficulty with a problem, but little is known about whether children can accurately judge whether they will need help with a problem prior to attempting it. Anticipation of a need for help requires children to assess both the problem and their existing knowledge of it; if an existing skill applies to a new problem, they should not need to seek help from a teacher. In four experiments, 151 3- to 5-year-olds were taught the solution to a puzzle box and decided how to approach subsequent boxes that were identical to (in perceptual appearance and name) or different from the initial box. Children successfully predicted that they would need help with different, but not identical, boxes. Other factors that may affect children’s willingness to seek help are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One important component of collaborative problem solving is the ability to plan one's own action in relation to that of a partner. We presented 3- and 5-year-old peer pairs with two different tool choice situations in which they had to choose complementary tools with which to subsequently work on a collaborative problem-solving apparatus. In the bidirectional condition , exemplars of the two necessary tools appeared in front of each child. In the unidirectional condition , one child had to choose between two different tools first, while the other child had only one tool available. Thus, both conditions required close attention to the actions of the partner, but the unidirectional condition additionally required the anticipation of the partner's constrained tool choice. Five-year-olds were proficient planners in both conditions, whereas 3-year-olds did not consistently make the correct choice. However, 3-year-olds who had first experienced the unidirectional condition chose the correct tool at an above-chance level. Moreover, communication during the tool choice led to greater success among 3-year-olds, but not among 5-year-olds. These results provide the first experimental evidence that between 3 and 5 years of age children develop the ability to plan the division of labor in a collaborative task. We discuss our findings regarding planning for a collaborative task in relation to prior research on planning abilities for individual problem-solving that appear to undergo developmental change between 3 and 5 years of age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: We compared the performance of 3- and 5-year-old children with that of chimpanzees in two tasks requiring collaboration via complementary roles. In both tasks, children and chimpanzees were able to coordinate two complementary roles with peers and solve the problem cooperatively. This is the first experimental demonstration of the coordination of complementary roles in chimpanzees. In the second task, neither species was skillful at waiting for a partner to be positioned appropriately before beginning (although children did hesitate significantly longer when the partner was absent). The main difference between species in both tasks was in children''s, but not chimpanzees’, ability to profit from experience as a collaborator in one role when later reversing roles. This difference suggests that as they participate in a collaboration, young children integrate both roles into a single “birds-eye-view” representational format in a way that chimpanzees do not. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: There is a fundamental difference between robots that are equipped with sensory, motor and cognitive capabilities, vs. simulations or non-embodied cognitive systems. Via their perceptual and motor capabilities, these robotic systems can interact with humans in an increasingly more “natural” way, physically interacting with shared objects in cooperative action settings. Indeed, such cognitive robotic systems provide a unique opportunity to developmental psychologists for implementing their theories and testing their hypotheses on systems that are becoming increasingly “at home” in the sensory--motor and social worlds, where such hypotheses are relevant. The current research is the result of interaction between research in computational neuroscience and robotics on the one hand, and developmental psychology on the other. One of the key findings in the developmental psychology context is that with respect to other primates, humans appear to have a unique ability and motivation to share goals and intentions with others. This ability is expressed in cooperative behavior very early in life, and appears to be the basis for subsequent development of social cognition. Here we attempt to identify a set of core functional elements of cooperative behavior and the corresponding shared intentional representations. We then begin to specify how these capabilities can be implemented in a robotic system, the Cooperator, and tested in human–robot interaction experiments. Based on the results of these experiments we discuss the mutual benefit for both fields of the interaction between robotics and developmental psychology. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Recent empirical research has shed new light on the perennial question of human altruism. A number of recent studies suggest that from very early in ontogeny young children have a biological predisposition to help others achieve their goals, to share resources with others and to inform others of things helpfully. Humans’ nearest primate relatives, such as chimpanzees, engage in some but not all of these behaviors: they help others instrumentally, but they are not so inclined to share resources altruistically and they do not inform others of things helpfully. The evolutionary roots of human altruism thus appear to be much more complex than previously supposed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: We investigated preschoolers’ selective learning from models that had previously appeared to be reliable or unreliable. Replicating previous research, children from 4 years selectively learned novel words from reliable over unreliable speakers. Extending previous research, children also selectively learned other kinds of acts – novel games – from reliable actors. More important, – and novel to this study, this selective learning was not just based on a preference for one model or one kind of act, but had a normative dimension to it. Children understood the way a reliable actor demonstrated an act not only as the better one, but as the normatively appropriate or correct one, as indicated in both their explicit verbal comments and their spontaneous normative interventions (e.g., protest, critique) in response to third-party acts deviating from the one demonstrated. These findings are discussed in the broader context of the development of children''s social cognition and cultural learning. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In theory of mind research, there is a long standing dispute about whether children come to understand the subjectivity of both desires and beliefs at the same time (around age 4), or whether there is an asymmetry such that desires are understood earlier. To address this issue, 3-year olds’ understanding of situations in which two persons have mutually incompatible desires was tested in two studies. Results revealed that (i) children were quite proficient at ascribing incompatible desires to two persons, and in simpler scenarios even incompatible desire-dependent emotions; (ii) children showed this proficiency even though they mostly failed the false belief task. Overall, these results suggest that there is an asymmetry such that young children come to understand the subjective nature of desires before they understand the corresponding subjectivity of beliefs. Possible explanations for this asymmetry are discussed in light of conceptual change and information-processing accounts of theory of mind development. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Recent research in developmental psychology shows that children understand several principles of fairness by 3 years of age, much earlier than previously believed. However, children's knowledge of fairness does not always align with their behavior, and immediate self-interest alone cannot explain this gap. In this forum paper, we consider two factors that influence the relation between fairness knowledge and behavior: relative advantage and how rewards are acquired. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Study 1 examined 4 and 6 year olds' trust in others' reciprocal prosociality. • Study 2 investigated 6−7 year olds' trust in others' generosity. • In both studies, children generally trusted at high levels. • In both studies, children showed ingroup biases on attitudinal measures. • They did not distinguish between ingroup and outgroup partners in their trust choices. Trust is a critical aspect of human cooperation, allowing individuals to overcome the risks posed by such interactions because of others' presumed cooperative inclinations. Adults sometimes mitigate these risks by preferentially trusting members of their own social group, yet it is currently unclear if the early emergence of children's trust in others' cooperative tendencies is affected by their intergroup psychology. Here we tested whether group membership impacts two key aspects of trust-based cooperation in young children – their trust in others' willingness to reciprocate an investment (assessed using the Investment Game, Study 1), and their trust in others' generosity (assessed using the Faith Game, Study 2). In both studies, children assigned to novel and otherwise arbitrary groups demonstrated general preferences for ingroup members on several measures. However, group membership did not influence their decisions about economic trust. In Study 1, 4- and 6-year-old children showed high levels of trust in both ingroup and outgroup members' tendency to reciprocate an investment. In Study 2, 6- to 7-year-old children similarly showed high levels of trust in ingroup and outgroup members' generosity, and they did so regardless of whether their group membership was a matter of common knowledge between themselves and the trustee. These findings show that young children's preferences for ingroup members do not result in bias due to shared group membership when making economic trust decisions. Rather, children tend to exhibit trust in the cooperativeness of others regardless of group membership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has shown that children's inequity aversion to disadvantage (DI) emerges in preschool years, whereas their inequity aversion to advantage (AI) does not always emerge during childhood across societies. Here we tested children in China, where children are exposed to Confucian values such as "suffering a disadvantage is a blessing", suggesting that Chinese children might show a different developmental pattern of stronger emphasis of AI as compared to DI. Four- to twelve-year-old Chinese children (N = 178 pairs, 90 girls) participated in the Inequity Game to explore when DI and AI emerges. Two experiments demonstrated that DI emerged around the age of five and AI emerged around the age of seven, a pattern similar to findings from studies with Western children. By including Chinese sample, the present work extends previous insight that DI emerges earlier than AI. Chinese unique cultural background emphasizing self-discipline and reputation are discussed to interpret the early and pronounced aversion to advantageous inequity in a non-WEIRD society. • Four- to 12-year-old Chinese children participated in the Inequity Game to explore when inequity aversion emerges. • Disadvantageous inequity aversion (DI) emerged around five and advantageous inequity aversion (AI) emerged around seven. • Chinese unique cultural background was discussed to interpret the early and pronounced AI in a non-WEIRD society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]