The Cognition-behavior Gap In School-age Children’s Third-party Intervention And Its Intervention Strategies

Third-party intervention is an altruistic behavior that plays an active role in group cooperation.As a third party outside of an unfair event,children are willing to engage in costly third-party intervention even when their interests are not involved.However,there is often a gap between children’s cognition and behavior.Few studies have explored this topic in the area of third-party interventions in school-aged children.Therefore,this study will examine whether there is a cognitive-behavioral gap in third-party intervention in school-aged children.This study will also explore effective intervention strategies when there is a cognitive-behavioral gap.This study will be able to provide a reference for schools to promote children’s altruistic behavior in moral education.According to previous studies,firstly,children have stable cognition of third-party intervention around the age of 6.Therefore,Experiment 1 will explore the developmental characteristics of school-age children’s cognition of third-party intervention.Experiment 1 will take children aged 6 to 10 years old as the research subjects.Second,children begin to exhibit stable third-party intervention behaviors around age 8.Therefore,Experiment 2 will explore the cognitive-behavioral gap of third-party intervention in school-aged children.Experiment 2 will be conducted with children aged 8 to 10 years.Finally,children exhibit reliable responses to normative information about punishment from around age 8.Therefore,Experiment 3 will explore the effects of normative information activation on third-party intervention behaviors in school-aged children.Experiment 3 will be conducted with children aged8 to 10 years.In summary,three experiments were conducted:Experiment 1 was conducted with 192 children aged 6 to 10 years old and used a 4(age: 6,7,8,9～10 years old)× 2(allocation context: selfish context,generous context)× 2(type of third-party intervention: third-party compensation,third-party punishment)three-factor mixed experimental design.A modified third-party dictator game was used to explore the developmental characteristics of school-age children’s cognition of third-party interventions.The results showed that school-age children’s third-party interventions were cognitively oriented toward third-party compensation.Children valued third-party compensation higher than third-party punishment.Experiment 2 was conducted with 105 children aged 8 to 10 years in a one-way within-subjects experimental design with the independent variables being the task context(behavioral context,cognitive context).The cognitive-behavioral gap in the third-party intervention in school-aged children was explored through a third-party dictator game.Results indicated that there was a cognitive-behavioral gap in the third-party intervention in school-aged children.Experiment 3 was conducted with 96 children aged 8 to 10 years in a one-way between-subjects experimental design with normative information as independent variables(third-party compensation,third-party punishment,inaction,and non-directional norm).A third-party dictator game was used to explore whether normative information activation can influence third-party intervention behavior in school-aged children.The results showed that normative information activation can influence school-age children’s third-party intervention behavior.Under the influence of compensatory normative information,children’s third-party intervention behavior is mainly third-party compensation.Under the influence of punitive normative information,children’s third-party intervention behavior is mainly third-party punishment.In summary,the study concluded the following:(1)School-aged children are cognitively inclined to third-party compensation.(2)There is a cognitive-behavioral gap in school-age children’s third-party interventions.(3)Normative information activation can influence school-age children’s third-party intervention behavior.