A Developmental Study Of The Effect Of Communication And Gender-matching Pattern On Children And Adolescents`Cooperation

The study on the development of children and adolescents 'sooperation has vital theoretical value and practical value. Historically, studies on cooperation had focused on the conditions in which cooperation will occur and it was short of studies on the developmental trend of children and adolescents?cooperation. Among the factors affecting cooperation, exterior factors such as reinforcement schemes, task characteristic had been overly underlined while subjects?social cognition to the whole cooperative context was overlooked. This study investigated into the developmental trend of children and adolescents cooperation, effect of gender-matching pattern and communication on cooperation. Cards were used as experimental materials and the cards consisted of two kinds: one in which word "C"was printed stood for "cooperation" the other in which word "D" was printed thus stood for "competition" Both kinds of cards had game rule in it. In all, 350 subjects were observed in this study. There were 62 students of the second grade elementary school (31 male, 31 female, the mean age was 11±1years old), 72 students of the fifth grade elemental school (36 male, 36 female, the mean age was 11±1years old), 72 students of the second grade junior middle school (36 male, 36 female, the mean age was 17±1years old), 72 students of the second grade senior school (36 male, 36 female, the mean age was 17±1years old) and 72 sophomores (36 male, 36 female, the mean age was 20+lyears old). Subjects of each grade who were stratified for gender -matching pattern were assigned randomly to one of the four experimental communicating conditions. A: they could talk and see each other B: they could talk but could not see each other C: they could see but could not talk each other D: neither could they talk nor could they see each other. The dependent variables included cooperation score and trustworthiness score. The results shows: (1) children and adolescents?cooperation score takes on a ladder-rising trend with age, this result supports the hypothesis 1. (2)The effect of communication on cooperation has been complicated by age characteristic. Communication has no significant effect on cooperation for elementary school students while the effect on cooperation for middle school students and undergraduates is greatly significant. This result supports the hypothesis 2. (3) Of the three gender -matching pattern, the difference of cooperation score between male─male pattern and male female pattern , between male male pattern and female─female pattern is significant, but that between male?female and female?female is not significant. The female─female pattern has the highest score and male─male pattern has the lowest score. This result partly supports the hypothesis3. (4) In each aspects of age characteristic, gender-matching pattern and communication, children?cooperation score is well consist with their interpersonal trustworthiness score.