Do children imitate even when it is costly? New insights from a novel task.

Children have a proclivity to learn through faithful imitation, but the extent to which this applies under significant cost remains unclear. To address this, we investigated whether 4- to 6-year-old children (N = 97) would stop imitating to forego a desirable food reward. We presented participants with a task involving arranging marshmallows and craft sticks, with the goal being either to collect marshmallows or build a tower. Children replicated the demonstrated actions with high fidelity regardless of the goal, but retrieved rewards differently. Children either copied the specific actions needed to build a tower, prioritizing tower completion over reward; or adopted a novel convention of stacking materials before collecting marshmallows, and developed their own method to achieve better outcomes. These results suggest children's social learning decisions are flexible and context-dependent, yet that when framed by an ostensive goal, children imitated in adherence to the goal despite incurring significant material costs.

Children's distinct drive to reproduce costly rituals.

Costly rituals are ubiquitous and adaptive. Yet, little is known about how children develop to acquire them. The current study examined children's imitation of costly rituals. Ninety-three 4-6 year olds (47 girls, 45% Oceanians, tested in 2022) were shown how to place tokens into a tube to earn stickers, using either a ritualistic or non-ritualistic costly action sequence. Children shown the ritualistic actions imitated faithfully at the expense of gaining stickers; conversely, those shown the non-ritualistic actions ignored them and obtained maximum reward. This highlights how preschool children are adept at and motivated to learn rituals, despite significant material cost. This study provides insights into the early development of cultural learning and the adaptive value of rituals in group cognition.

How economic inequality affects prosocial behavior in children across development.

Research has linked economically unequal environments to lower prosocial behavior in adults. However, we know little about how inequality affects children's prosociality. Here, 4- to 9-year-old children (N = 128) played a series of games with several puppets where points were awarded. The distribution of points was characterized by either high inequality or low inequality. Children's donation behavior (i.e., the number of stickers they donated to a poor child), resource division behavior (i.e., how they divided extra points among poor and rich puppets), and fairness perceptions (i.e., how fair they perceived the game to be) were measured in response. Although the experimental manipulation of inequality did not affect children's donations, exploratory analyses revealed that higher inequality in children's home suburb was linked to lower donation rates. Furthermore, with age, children distributed points with increasing concern for poorer individuals, and negative judgments of the inequality were linked to distributing resources to poorer individuals. Here we present the first comprehensive analysis of children's prosocial reactions to high and low inequality across development.

The effect of economic inequality on young children's prosocial decision-making.

An emerging body of literature has documented the negative implications high economic inequality can have on children's social and cognitive development. However, little experimental research has directly addressed how wealth discrepancies impact the way children treat others. The current study thus aimed to address the implications of economic inequality on prosocial decision-making in children prior to commencing formal schooling. Using a novel experimental paradigm, we immersed 4-year-old children (N = 58) in a series of games where they played against puppets for rewards. During this process, children were exposed to resource allocations featuring either high inequality or low inequality. We subsequently measured children's donation behaviour, resource division behaviour, and fairness perceptions. As predicted, children were less altruistic when exposed to high inequality compared to low inequality. Contrary to predictions, there was no difference in resource division behaviour or fairness perceptions. This study documents for the first time that exposure to environmental inequality, even if brief and in a controlled experimental setting, can influence young children's prosocial decision-making. Statement of contribution What is already known on the subject? Adults tend to be less prosocial towards others after experiencing high economic inequality. Young children understand when outcomes are unequal. Young children also have a rudimentary understanding of what is fair. What does this study adds? A novel experimental design was utilized to immerse children in a safe experimental economy. Pre-schoolers are less altruistic after experiencing high inequality compared to low inequality. Children did not attempt to adjust prior inequalities in their resource division behaviour.

Determinants of Spatial Heterogeneity of Functional Illiteracy among School-Aged Children in the Philippines: An Ecological Study.

Functional literacy is one of the targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations. Functional literacy indicators are likely to vary between locations given the geographical variability of its major determinants. This property poses a challenge to decisions around efficient allocation of population services and resources to mitigate the impact of functional literacy in populations most in need. Using functional literacy indicators of 11,313 school-aged children collected in 2008 during the nationwide survey, the current study examined the association between functional literacy and geographical disparities in socioeconomic status (SES), water supply, sanitation and hygiene, household education stimuli, and environmental variables in all three regions of the Philippines (Luzon, the Visayas, and Mindanao). Three nested fixed-effects multinomial regression models were built to determine associations between functional literacy and a wide array of variables. Our results showed the general prevalence rate of functional illiteracy as being 4.7%, with the highest prevalence rate in the Visayas, followed by Mindanao and Luzon (7.5%, 6.9%, and 3.0%, respectively. Our results indicated that in Luzon prevalence of functional illiteracy was explained by variation in household education stimuli scores, sources of drinking water, and type of toilet facility. In Mindanao and the Visayas prevalence of functional illiteracy was primarily explained by geographical variation in SES, and natural environmental conditions. Our study highlights region-specific determinants of functional literacy and the need for geographically targeted, integrated interventions.

Behavioral Investments in the Short Term Fail to Produce a Sunk Cost Effect.

A cognitive bias known as the sunk cost effect has been found across a number of contexts. This bias drives the continued investment of time, effort, or money into an endeavor on the basis of prior investments into it. In Studies 1 and 2, we attempted to observe whether this effect occurs for short-term behavioral investments. In both studies, a reverse, or no sunk cost effect was found. In Study 3, we attempted to find an effect using hypothetical scenarios that were analagous to the behavioral investments presented in Study 1. This also failed to reveal an effect. Finally, Study 4 was an attempt to replicate a previously used hypothetical investment scenario; with results this time revealing the effect. A number of explanations for this pattern of results, such as participation and salient physical exertion, are discussed, with the possibility that some short-term behavioral investments are not subject to the sunk cost effect.

The cost of helping: An exploration of compassionate responding in children.

Children engage in prosocial behaviour from an early age. Whether children will reliably provide compassionate help to a suffering individual is unclear. To investigate this, 73 4-years-olds were presented with three novel tasks in which they and a puppet had opportunity to win stickers by completing respective versions of the same tasks. In all cases, the puppets were unable to complete their tasks. The puppets 'reacted' by being either upset or not upset. While children provided help when it did not cost them, their inclination to do so was significantly diminished when it incurred a personal cost. Statement of contribution What is already known on this subject? Children are generally prosocial and altruistic. Personal cost can inhibit prosocial helping in children. What does this study add? We created two conditions (distress vs. no distress) and (cost vs. no cost) to examine the difference between prosocial and compassionate helping. We obtained first evidence that children will not respond compassionately when incurring a personal cost.

The persistent sampling bias in developmental psychology: A call to action.

Psychology must confront the bias in its broad literature toward the study of participants developing in environments unrepresentative of the vast majority of the world's population. Here, we focus on the implications of addressing this challenge, highlight the need to address overreliance on a narrow participant pool, and emphasize the value and necessity of conducting research with diverse populations. We show that high-impact-factor developmental journals are heavily skewed toward publishing articles with data from WEIRD (Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic) populations. Most critically, despite calls for change and supposed widespread awareness of this problem, there is a habitual dependence on convenience sampling and little evidence that the discipline is making any meaningful movement toward drawing from diverse samples. Failure to confront the possibility that culturally specific findings are being misattributed as universal traits has broad implications for the construction of scientifically defensible theories and for the reliable public dissemination of study findings.

Direct cost does not impact on young children's spontaneous helping behavior.

The propensity of humans to engage in prosocial behavior is unlike that of any other species. Individuals will help others even when it comes at a cost to themselves, and even when the others are complete strangers. However, to date, scant empirical evidence has been forthcoming on young children's altruistic tendencies. To investigate this 45 4-year-olds were presented with a task in which they had opportunity to help an adult confederate retrieve a reward from a novel box. In a control condition children were given no information about the effect of potential helping behavior. Alternatively they were informed that helping would either cost them (i.e., they would miss out on getting the reward) or benefit them (i.e., they would get the reward). It was hypothesized that children would be less likely, and slower, to help in the cost condition, compared to the other two conditions. This hypothesis was not supported: children across all conditions provided help at near ceiling levels.