The development of social comparisons and sharing behavior across 12 countries.

Humans are social beings, and acts of prosocial behavior may be influenced by social comparisons. To study the development of prosociality and the impact of social comparisons on sharing, we conducted experiments with nearly 2500 children aged 3-12 years across 12 countries across five continents. Children participated in a dictator game where they had the opportunity to share up to 10 of their stickers with another anonymous child. Then, children were randomized to one of two treatments. In the "shared a little" treatment children were told that another child from their school had shared 1 sticker, whereas in the "shared a lot" treatment children were told that another child from their school had shared 6 stickers in the same game. There was a strong increase in baseline sharing with age in all countries and in both treatments. The "shared a lot" treatment had a positive treatment effect in increasing sharing overall, which varied across countries. However, cross-cultural comparisons did not yield expected significant differences between collectivist and individualist countries. Our results provide interesting evidence for the development of sharing behavior by age across the world and show that social information about the sharing of peers is important for children's decision making.

The development of children's preferences for equality and equity across 13 individualistic and collectivist cultures.

A concern for fairness is a fundamental and universal element of morality. To examine the extent to which cultural norms are integrated into fairness cognitions and influence social preferences regarding equality and equity, a large sample of children (N 2,163) aged 4-11 were tested in 13 diverse countries. Children participated in three versions of a third-party, contextualized distributive justice game between two hypothetical recipients differing in terms of wealth, merit, and empathy. Social decision-making in these games revealed universal age-related shifts from equality-based to equity-based distribution motivations across cultures. However, differences in levels of individualism and collectivism between the 13 countries predicted the age and extent to which children favor equity in each condition. Children from the most individualistic cultures endorsed equitable distributions to a greater degree than children from more collectivist cultures when recipients differed in regards to wealth and merit. However, in an empathy context where recipients differed in injury, children from the most collectivist cultures exhibited greater preferences to distribute resource equitably compared to children from more individualistic cultures. Children from the more individualistic cultures also favored equitable distributions at an earlier age than children from more collectivist cultures overall. These results demonstrate aspects of both cross-cultural similarity and divergence in the development of fairness preferences.

Respuesta electrodérmica y expresiones faciales de niños que entablan un juego de ficción relacionado con comportamientos de agresión / Electrodermal Response and Facial Expressions of Children who Engage in Pretense Play Related with Aggressive Behaviors

En Colombia existe un alto porcentaje de niños y jóvenes que despliegan o son víctimas de conductas agresivas en el contexto escolar. Existe evidencia que muestra que estas conductas están asociadas con dificultades en la regulación emocional y en los procesos de teoría de la mente. Se llevaron a cabo seis estudios de caso a niños entre los 4 y 8 años de edad. A los participantes del estudio se les presentó un cuestionario en donde se planteaban situaciones conflictivas y buscaba fomentar el juego de ficción. Se evaluó la respuesta electrodérmica y las expresiones faciales durante la entrevista. Se presentó una mayor frecuencia de expresiones faciales y cambios en la respuesta electrodérmica cuando la agresión, en las situaciones conflictivas, era intencional y dirigida a un sujeto. Las emociones más frecuentes, registradas en la expresión facial, fueron rabia, tristeza y desprecio. Los resultados de este estudio, sugieren que las expresiones faciales y la respuesta electrodérmica pueden ser medidas interesantes para estudiar la regulación emocional y las conductas agresivas.

Colombia displays a high percentage of children and teenagers that deploy or are victims of aggressive behaviour in the school. There is evidence that shows that these behaviours are associated with difficulties during emotion regulation and in theory of mind. Six case studies were developed in children between 4 and 8 years of age. A questionnaire that involved conflict situations and that sought to promote pretense play was presented to participants. Facial expressions and electrodermic responses were evaluated during the interview. A higher frequency of facial expressions and changes in electrodermic response were recorded when the aggression, in the conflict situations, was intentional and directed towards a person. The most frequent facial expressions of emotion were anger, sadness, and contempt. The results of the present study suggest that facial expressions and electrodermic response could be interesting measures to study emotion regulation and aggressive behaviour.