Children Aged 4-6 In The Field Of Ethics And Customs Share The Development Of Anticipation And Sharing Behavior

The developing of sharing behavior, one of the typical prosocial behaviors, not only can be found in young children's directly observed behavior, but also can be reflected in their sharing expectations. Social domain theory shows us a world full of different kinds of rules. These rules can be classified into three main domains:moral, conventional and personal domain. These different fields of rules regulate individual performance in corresponding domain. With the difference in nature between moral rules and conventional rules, children then have different cognition and evaluation to various actors, to someone who follow the moral or conventional rules, or someone who violate these rules. Moreover, these cognition and evaluation then may have an important influence in children's sharing behavior.125 children aging from 4- to 6-year-old in Nanjing were examined by telling them a series of pictorial stories which mainly describes two domain rules:moral and conventional domain. Through these stories, the first aim of the study was to find the cognitive development law of these domains' rules. The second but overriding aim was to research the development of young children's sharing behavior and sharing expectation in these two main domains. Results are as follows:1) Almost all of these 4-6 years old children had a correct cognition of moral and conventional rules, just only one or two 4- or 5-year-old children couldn't point out the "wrongness" of rule violations within conventional domain. Under the three judgment criterion:seriousness degree of consequence, varity of rules and evaluation to actors, we found that most children can use these criterion to accurately distinguish moral and conventional rules, and the proportion of correct distinguishing increased more with age. Otherwise, there was no difference between boys and girls in understanding of moral and conventional rules.2) In baseline scenario without moral or conventional rules, we found there was no significant difference in gender and age of young children's sharing expectation: F(1, 119)=2.54,p>0.05, F(2, 119)=0.08,p>0.05 But there was a role effect:F(2. 1,119)=81.77, p<0.01. Expect sharing expectation, we also examined children's sharing behavior in baseline scenario. Firstly, we found that girls could make more sharing behavior than boys, F(1,113)=4.51,p<0.05. Secondly, the number of sharing was influenced by their expectation, F<1,113)=5.70, p<0.05:children would make more sharing behavior if the number others shared with them was beyond their expectation. If it is below, then they inclined not to make sharing.3) In these stories involved moral or conventional rules, there was a significant interaction of domain and situation both in children's sharing expectation and behavior, F(1, 119)=36.70,p<0.01, F(1,113)=47.99,p<0.01:all children expected people who obeyed moral rules can make the most sharing behavior, the second was who obeyed conventional rules, the third one was who violated conventional rules could do more sharing behavior, the least one was who violated moral rules. This difference also existed in children's sharing behavior.4) In moral and conventional situations, we found there was a role effect in individual's expectation. This effect can be found in the three ages and all situations. But with age increasing the development patterns in different sharing objects had diverse paths. And this may be caused by developing of concept of friendship and their ability of theory of mind.5) The results of expectation not only influenced children's evaluation to sharer but also their emotion judgment, F(1,124)=25.98,p<0.01, F(1,113)=7.19, p<0.01. Otherwise, the expected result's influence on sharing behavior was accommodated by situation, F(1,113)=5.41,p<0.05. In obeying situation, there was no significant difference between different expected results. But in violating situation, people shared more when amount is beyond their expecting than below.6) There was a significant correlation between childern's sharing expectation and sharing behavior, and the relationship had different ways in different situations.Based on the results, we drawn the following inclusions:1) 4-6 years old children had a correct cognition of moral and conventional rules. Age differences derived from different types of social interactions.2) The ability of sharing expectation rooted in the mastery of two kinds of abilities:one is the acquisition of sharing rule, the other is the development of theory of mind. Otherwise, the understanding of contextual cues, such as moral, conventional rule and the role, had a significant influence in children's sharing expectation.3) 4 years old children could share with others already, while motivation of sharing were varied and complex in different situations.