Source:
Kristin L. Leimgruber, Alex Shaw, Laurie R. Santos, Kristina R. Olson. Young Children Are More Generous when Others Are Aware of Their Actions. PLoS ONE, 2012; 7 (10): e48292 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0048292
On the web: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 214138.htm
Adults are more likely to behave in ways that enhance their reputation when they are being watched or their actions are likely to be made public than when they are anonymous, but this study examines the origins of such behavior in young children for the first time. For their study, the researchers presented five year olds with stickers and gave them the option of sharing one or four stickers with another five year old. The authors found that children were more generous when they could see the recipient than when the recipient was hidden from view, and were also more generous when they had to give stickers in a transparent container rather than an opaque one (meaning the recipient could see what they were receiving). They also found that these behaviors were independent of how many stickers the children were given to keep for themselves.
According to the authors, these results show that children as young as five can make strategic choices about whether to be generous, depending on whether or not a recipient is aware of their actions. Leimgruber explains, "Although the frequency with which children acted antisocially is striking, the conditions under which they chose to act generously are even more interesting and suggest that children likely use much more sophisticated prosocial strategies than we previously assumed. Much like the patterns of charity we see in adults, donation tendencies in children appear to be driven by the amount of information available to others about their actions -- for both adults and children, the more others know about their actions, the more likely they are to act generously."
Giving - is it taught as strategy for reputation?
Re: Giving - is it taught as strategy for reputation?
a couple of observations here:
1) "Learning" cannot be controlled - learning happens on the terms of the child, thus the parent cannot teach what he or she does not live.
2) The dimension of how much children understand beyond the the words they know how to speak is unknown to science, when "understanding" is demonstrated here through the child's ability of complex cognitive functioning by making calculated decisions that will benefit the child's reputation.
So, what does that tell us about the way we raise children?
1) "Learning" cannot be controlled - learning happens on the terms of the child, thus the parent cannot teach what he or she does not live.
2) The dimension of how much children understand beyond the the words they know how to speak is unknown to science, when "understanding" is demonstrated here through the child's ability of complex cognitive functioning by making calculated decisions that will benefit the child's reputation.
So, what does that tell us about the way we raise children?
- KellyPosey
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Re: Giving - is it taught as strategy for reputation?
This is exactly why we don't see the truth of what is going on in reality all over the media, because if it was in our face all the time, we would actually do something about it, we would change the system, and then those at the top would lose their profits and life of luxury beyond reason, and thus why it is suppressed so extensively.
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Re: Giving - is it taught as strategy for reputation?
These two interviews are awesome and a must hear as they go well with this particular topic.
‘Give as You would Like to Receive’ - Perspective from the Heart of a Reptilian.
How to Live Harmony and Peace (Part 1) – Part 142
How to Live Harmony and Peace (Part 2) – Part 143
‘Give as You would Like to Receive’ - Perspective from the Heart of a Reptilian.
How to Live Harmony and Peace (Part 1) – Part 142
How to Live Harmony and Peace (Part 2) – Part 143
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Desteni 'I' Process Recruiter/Agent
Cathy's Blog
Cathy's You Tube Channel
1 Vote 4 Equality Channel
Re: Giving - is it taught as strategy for reputation?
This is an interesting article. It would be cool if more detail was provided regarding the living of the child. I would like to see the different variables that would effect a child's relationship with sharing: How many siblings close to the same age are in the home? How many other children are in the same childcare/classroom environment? What is the parent's perspective on sharing? What are the parent's showing vs. telling their children about sharing? Does the parent/caregiver 'take away' objects/toys as punishment or as a tool to control the child?
Do these variables change anything?
Then again, is it simply a human's beingness? Some/most babies will cry if we take a toy away from them and as they get a bit older it's been shown that kid's get downright angry if what's taken away from them is given to another child. Within this, I recall something that I heard from Sunette in an interview/blog in relation to Time (can't remember which one at the moment) where she explained that children have physical moments with objects where it's kind of like, "I'm here enjoying this object and now I have to do something else? Why must I? I was satisfied doing with what I was doing."
To answer the question of: What does this say about our parenting? From my perspective, the answer is: It says that we are not aware and we are not paying attention. We do not see how highly intelligent our children are and this is a mistake. Additionally, we do not see, realize, nor understand what REAL intelligence is in this world.
Do these variables change anything?
Then again, is it simply a human's beingness? Some/most babies will cry if we take a toy away from them and as they get a bit older it's been shown that kid's get downright angry if what's taken away from them is given to another child. Within this, I recall something that I heard from Sunette in an interview/blog in relation to Time (can't remember which one at the moment) where she explained that children have physical moments with objects where it's kind of like, "I'm here enjoying this object and now I have to do something else? Why must I? I was satisfied doing with what I was doing."
To answer the question of: What does this say about our parenting? From my perspective, the answer is: It says that we are not aware and we are not paying attention. We do not see how highly intelligent our children are and this is a mistake. Additionally, we do not see, realize, nor understand what REAL intelligence is in this world.
- Garbrielle
- Posts: 1398
- Joined: 15 Jun 2011, 03:29
Re: Giving - is it taught as strategy for reputation?
This is interesting, and it proves as evidence that the principle of 'so within, as without' is correct, we as the adults of this world are raising our children in the image and likeness of us, I mean they are products of what they are being imprinted with not only within the parental level or even family level, but media, magazines, phones, computers, ipods, videogames, internet. They are actually, the kids these days, walking into unknown territory as the effects of the internet and all these technological gadgets they are now saturated with on a daily basis are having quite an effect on their living behaviors, and many in my own surroundings are addicted to them, have a physical outbreak/reaction if they don't have the screen in front of them at least a few times during the day. They would rather be inside playing a video game then outside playing and doing activities that are physical, not that I wasn't into these things too, but the frequency has increased far more then when I was that age due to the availability and affordability of these gadgets that are given now with much more ease and far reaching consequence through the exposure the children are bombarded with into the 'adult' world (mind).
We are the living examples for the children, and thus we have the responsibility to support them into being beings of integrity and self expression as life, I am reminded of a video i recently saw of a boy who lied to his moms face, straight out, of getting into jimmies, even though they were all over the counter and all over his face, she asked several time and each time denied completely even when she said he had them on his face, he still denied it. This is programmed behavior they are copy and imitating from those they are looking to to show them how to live, ect....we can't deny these facts and evidentiary videos and studies, so it's cool we are starting with the new parent series on eqafe and getting into the nitty gritty of how this is operating on multi dimensional levels within the mind so we can understand and thus create the opportunity for change.
We are the living examples for the children, and thus we have the responsibility to support them into being beings of integrity and self expression as life, I am reminded of a video i recently saw of a boy who lied to his moms face, straight out, of getting into jimmies, even though they were all over the counter and all over his face, she asked several time and each time denied completely even when she said he had them on his face, he still denied it. This is programmed behavior they are copy and imitating from those they are looking to to show them how to live, ect....we can't deny these facts and evidentiary videos and studies, so it's cool we are starting with the new parent series on eqafe and getting into the nitty gritty of how this is operating on multi dimensional levels within the mind so we can understand and thus create the opportunity for change.
Re: Giving - is it taught as strategy for reputation?
these are very interesting points posted by everyone here - thanks for sharing.
After reading what you guys wrote I downloaded the paper.
Here I just want to share the "discussion" section of the paper where generally researchers' contextualise their findings and the literature on the topic:
The present results provide evidence that five-year-old children’s generosity is heavily influenced both by the presence of a visible audience and by the transparency of their actions. Although our participants donated allocations generously when the recipient was visible and the allocation options were transparent, children became systematically less generous if one or both of these factors were absent. Overall, actors were consistently more generous when the recipient was visible than when she was occluded from view, suggesting the important role audience cues play in children’s prosocial behavior. However, even when actors could see the recipient, children were systematically less generous when the allocations were presented in opaque containers than when the allocations were presented in transparent containers, that is, when the recipient was unaware of the actor’s allocation options. This suggests that children’s prosocial decisions are indeed motived by extrinsic factors and that the transparency of their actions strongly influences decisions regarding when to act prosocially, even in the presence of an audience.
One striking aspect of our results is that children were considerably ungenerous in our task. Indeed, children only showed consistently prosocial behavior in our study in the condition when they could see the recipient and their allocations were fully visible; in all other conditions, children were statistically ungenerous, giving the recipient the smaller amount of stickers. It is worth noting that this level of prosociality is lower than what one might have initially expected based on previous developmental work testing children’s sharing and allocation of resources, (e.g., [78], [79], [83]–[85], [87], [91]). Such previous work has generally reported that children behave rather generously, however it is hard to decipher the role that audience and transparency cues may have played in previous studies. As such, previous studies that observe high levels of generosity may have inadvertently included the same audience and transparency cues that we observe contribute to high rates of prosociality. Therefore, it is difficult to make direct comparisons between levels of generosity observed in our study and those reported in previous research. However, given the strong influence audience and transparency effects had on prosocial behavior in our study, it is our hope that researchers will take these factors into account much more often when designing studies examining prosocial behavior in the future.
One additional explanation for the low rates of giving we observed in our study is that children may have been unintentionally primed to think of our experiment as a competition. When describing our study to children, we referred to our allocation task as a “game” and told children that they could use their accrued stickers as tokens to get a prize. Thinking about our task as a game in which tokens were going toward a prize may have put children in a competitive mindset, thus making them want to try to accrue more tokens than the recipient. Indeed, even adults will work harder for a prize in cases where they stand to get relatively more tokens, even if (as in our task) the tokens cannot be kept and are used to get a pre-determined prize [92]. We also know from previous work that being placed in a competitive mindset causes children to place a larger value on getting more than others (see for example, [93]). It is possible, then, that children behaved more ungenerously on our task because they thought the game was a competitive one.
The potential for children to have construed our task in a competitive framework highlights another potential framing of our results. We initially interpreted our findings as showing evidence that children exhibit more generosity when transparency and audience cues are present. However, our results are also consistent with the possibility that transparency and audience cues work the opposite way– rather than increasing children’s generosity, such cues might instead inhibit children’s ungenerous behavior.
Under either framing of the results, the upshot is the same: children modify their behavior in response to the presence of audience and transparency cues. When audience and transparency cues were present, children were substantially more willing to give resources to another recipient. Competitive motives may have reduced children’s overall rates of generosity in our study, but children restricted these competitive impulses in cases where the recipient could see them and when the recipient would know if she was given less. We further found that both the presence of an audience and transparency cues independently influenced children’s behavior. Based only on the present results, it is difficult to know whether children acted more generously in the presence of audience and transparency cues, or whether they inhibited their ungenerous tendencies in the presence of such cues.
After reading what you guys wrote I downloaded the paper.
Here I just want to share the "discussion" section of the paper where generally researchers' contextualise their findings and the literature on the topic:
The present results provide evidence that five-year-old children’s generosity is heavily influenced both by the presence of a visible audience and by the transparency of their actions. Although our participants donated allocations generously when the recipient was visible and the allocation options were transparent, children became systematically less generous if one or both of these factors were absent. Overall, actors were consistently more generous when the recipient was visible than when she was occluded from view, suggesting the important role audience cues play in children’s prosocial behavior. However, even when actors could see the recipient, children were systematically less generous when the allocations were presented in opaque containers than when the allocations were presented in transparent containers, that is, when the recipient was unaware of the actor’s allocation options. This suggests that children’s prosocial decisions are indeed motived by extrinsic factors and that the transparency of their actions strongly influences decisions regarding when to act prosocially, even in the presence of an audience.
One striking aspect of our results is that children were considerably ungenerous in our task. Indeed, children only showed consistently prosocial behavior in our study in the condition when they could see the recipient and their allocations were fully visible; in all other conditions, children were statistically ungenerous, giving the recipient the smaller amount of stickers. It is worth noting that this level of prosociality is lower than what one might have initially expected based on previous developmental work testing children’s sharing and allocation of resources, (e.g., [78], [79], [83]–[85], [87], [91]). Such previous work has generally reported that children behave rather generously, however it is hard to decipher the role that audience and transparency cues may have played in previous studies. As such, previous studies that observe high levels of generosity may have inadvertently included the same audience and transparency cues that we observe contribute to high rates of prosociality. Therefore, it is difficult to make direct comparisons between levels of generosity observed in our study and those reported in previous research. However, given the strong influence audience and transparency effects had on prosocial behavior in our study, it is our hope that researchers will take these factors into account much more often when designing studies examining prosocial behavior in the future.
One additional explanation for the low rates of giving we observed in our study is that children may have been unintentionally primed to think of our experiment as a competition. When describing our study to children, we referred to our allocation task as a “game” and told children that they could use their accrued stickers as tokens to get a prize. Thinking about our task as a game in which tokens were going toward a prize may have put children in a competitive mindset, thus making them want to try to accrue more tokens than the recipient. Indeed, even adults will work harder for a prize in cases where they stand to get relatively more tokens, even if (as in our task) the tokens cannot be kept and are used to get a pre-determined prize [92]. We also know from previous work that being placed in a competitive mindset causes children to place a larger value on getting more than others (see for example, [93]). It is possible, then, that children behaved more ungenerously on our task because they thought the game was a competitive one.
The potential for children to have construed our task in a competitive framework highlights another potential framing of our results. We initially interpreted our findings as showing evidence that children exhibit more generosity when transparency and audience cues are present. However, our results are also consistent with the possibility that transparency and audience cues work the opposite way– rather than increasing children’s generosity, such cues might instead inhibit children’s ungenerous behavior.
Under either framing of the results, the upshot is the same: children modify their behavior in response to the presence of audience and transparency cues. When audience and transparency cues were present, children were substantially more willing to give resources to another recipient. Competitive motives may have reduced children’s overall rates of generosity in our study, but children restricted these competitive impulses in cases where the recipient could see them and when the recipient would know if she was given less. We further found that both the presence of an audience and transparency cues independently influenced children’s behavior. Based only on the present results, it is difficult to know whether children acted more generously in the presence of audience and transparency cues, or whether they inhibited their ungenerous tendencies in the presence of such cues.
Re: Giving - is it taught as strategy for reputation?
In reference to Carrie's question, parent's were not present even during audience 'sessions'.
What I noticed is the researchers commented on the competition point as an "excuse". In other words, that there could have been a chance and for that reason the results came out as they did, that the children thought it was a competition. What is being overlooked here is that the fundamental behaviour of reacting differently and tailored to and in various situations e.g. audience vs no audience, is based on competitive behaviour. Reputation is always done in order to win and it is always done by comparison. What is missing from this study and would have been interesting to know, what was the verbal exchange between the children ( the actor vs the receiver) and what kind of influence it might have had. Similarly, the children saw each other, where there any judgements based on what the other (receiver) child looked like?
We can see how our greater competitive system permeates absolutely everything down to the very gesture of a child.
What I noticed is the researchers commented on the competition point as an "excuse". In other words, that there could have been a chance and for that reason the results came out as they did, that the children thought it was a competition. What is being overlooked here is that the fundamental behaviour of reacting differently and tailored to and in various situations e.g. audience vs no audience, is based on competitive behaviour. Reputation is always done in order to win and it is always done by comparison. What is missing from this study and would have been interesting to know, what was the verbal exchange between the children ( the actor vs the receiver) and what kind of influence it might have had. Similarly, the children saw each other, where there any judgements based on what the other (receiver) child looked like?
We can see how our greater competitive system permeates absolutely everything down to the very gesture of a child.
Re: Giving - is it taught as strategy for reputation?
Fascinating!
There is no denying that our children are mirroring ourselves.
With my first born, I nurtured competition. With my second, I did not - however, he was READY for it at the precise moment that opportunity to WIN and BEAT ME at a game was presented to him. He embraced this as, "Hey ... I could beat MOM!" While I was in a moment of shock he was buckling down, focusing himself and poised to take me out. What I'm seeing here is that we may be looking at a point of Inequality and Inferiority as by this age in a child's life we have exercised our control over the child.
A solution that I have found to this is to instead of 'laying down the law' with the child is to have a discussion. Within the discussion I have found that is effective if I am in awareness and control of the tone of my voice and share myself as if I were in the shoes of my child - I have watched Destonians do this with others/adults and seen the effectiveness of placing oneself as another so I tested it out on my child and it works. This type of honest communication paired with the awareness of the voice, not reacting, and following the 'Problem, Solution, and Reward' template looks like it is highly effective in assisting a child to make and live out decisions that are best.
There is no denying that our children are mirroring ourselves.
With my first born, I nurtured competition. With my second, I did not - however, he was READY for it at the precise moment that opportunity to WIN and BEAT ME at a game was presented to him. He embraced this as, "Hey ... I could beat MOM!" While I was in a moment of shock he was buckling down, focusing himself and poised to take me out. What I'm seeing here is that we may be looking at a point of Inequality and Inferiority as by this age in a child's life we have exercised our control over the child.
A solution that I have found to this is to instead of 'laying down the law' with the child is to have a discussion. Within the discussion I have found that is effective if I am in awareness and control of the tone of my voice and share myself as if I were in the shoes of my child - I have watched Destonians do this with others/adults and seen the effectiveness of placing oneself as another so I tested it out on my child and it works. This type of honest communication paired with the awareness of the voice, not reacting, and following the 'Problem, Solution, and Reward' template looks like it is highly effective in assisting a child to make and live out decisions that are best.
Re: Giving - is it taught as strategy for reputation?
I will do some blogs on this for context and perspectives within what I found when I was testing solutions for problems with my 5-year old.