Abstract
Humans' social interactions are characterized by a tension between individual-regarding preferences-such as others' subjective preferences-and group-regarding preferences-such as others' group membership. Using the dictator game, we demonstrate that this tension characterizes even preschool children's distributive behavior, and that it patterns differently across development and genders. Study 1 contrasted ownership of the resource (mine/ours/not mine) with recipients' minimal group membership (in-group/out-group). We found that only boys generated biased distributions favoring the in-group, and preserved common resources as if they were their own. Study 2 revealed that upon learning of recipients' personal preferences (like/doesn't like resource), boys and girls complied with in-group members' preferences, but only boys also manifested a behavior that opposed out-group members' preferences. The early emergence of a balance between individual- and group-regarding preferences sheds light on the origins of parochialism, and its gender selectivity is consistent with evolutionary accounts of the origins of group cognition in humans.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 256-264 |
| Number of pages | 9 |
| Journal | Evolution and Human Behavior |
| Volume | 36 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 1 Jul 2015 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2015 Elsevier Inc.
Keywords
- Altruism
- Dictator game
- Gender
- Minimal group
- Ownership
- Preschool
- Resource distribution