The Developing Mechanism Of Young Children's Other-regarding Preferences

The other-regarding preferences has the decisive effect to maintain the cooperation of the human being. It is a phenomenon that the people care for other's behavior, income and result even though it has nothing to do with them. The research of other-regarding preferences is the field which roots in the behavior economics, psychology and sociology. The young Children were rarely used as subjects in the experiment although the west scholars have done many researches in the field. Therefore, we take the children as subjects and base various motivation theories to investigate the developing mechanism of young children's other-regarding preferences through the prosocial game, envy game and sharing game.Experiment 1 is to investigate the main developing mechanism of young children's other-regarding preferences and the characteristic of age. Every child play each game with an anonymous partner. In the sharing game, only 17% of children were willing to share at age 3-4. If the subject can at no cost to himself deliver a benefit to the partner in the prosocial game and envy game, about 50% of 3-4-yr-old children preferred the egalitarian allocation, which did not differ significantly from 50%. The percentage of 7-8-yr-old children choosing the (1,1) alternative differed significantly from 50% in the prosocial game and in the envy game, and there are 43% of children who were willing to share in the sharing game. These result indicate that most children behaved selfishly at age 3-4, and with the age increase, majority of 7-8-yr-old children require equity and have inequity aversion.Experiment 2 is to investigate the egalitarian in young children roots in the equity of behavior result or the equity of behavior motivation by setting the friendly and unfriendly scene in the experiment. In the prosocial game and sharing game, the frequency of (1,1) choices between the ages of 3 and 8 in the friendly scene is little higher than that in the neutral scene, whereas in the envy game, the frequency of (1,1) choices between the ages of 3 and 8 in the friendly scene is little lower than that in the neutral scene, and the frequency of (1,1) choices at age 7-8 in the friendly scene still reaches 71%, which is significantly above 50% frequency. In the prosocial game and sharing game, the frequency of (1,1) choices between the ages of 3 and 8 in the unfriendly scene is little lower than that in the neutral scene, and in the prosocial game, the frequency of (1,1) choices at age 7-8 in the unfriendly scene reaches 72.4%, which is significantly above 50% frequency. whereas in the envy game, the frequency of (1,1) choices between the ages of 3 and 8 in the friendly scene is little higher than that in the neutral scene. These result indicate that the equity of behavior result might mainly determine the young children's other-regarding preferences, and the equity of behavior motivation also affect the children's behavior.We can draw a conclusion as follows:1 Egalitarian might be the main developing mechanism of children's other-regarding preferences. At age 3-4, the overwhelming majority of children behave selfishly, whereas most of children at age 7-8 require equity.2 The equity of behavior result might mainly determine the young children's other-regarding preferences, and the equity of behavior motivation also affect the children's behavior. The behavioral patterns across all three games suggest that whatever in the friendly scene or in the unfriendly scene, children's egalitarian increases with age, and the percentage of egalitarian at age 7-8 significantly differs from 25%, which is close to the neutral scene.3 Parochial tendency affect the children's other-regarding preferences, and the other-regarding and the parochialism simultaneously develop with age. Children would like to deliver a benefit to the partner, when they played with partner who they recognized in the prosocial game and in the sharing game.4 Boys show much stronger parochial tendencies than girls do. In the envy game, boys preferred the allocation of (1,2) if they recognized the partner, whereas they would like to choose the allocation of (1,1) if they did not recognize the partner. But girls do not differentiate in their choice between the partner they recognize and the partner they do not recognize. 5 The only child effect. Children without siblings showed much more costly sharing behavior than children with siblings, if we control for income effects.