Exploring the origins of charitable acts: Evidence from an artefactual field experiment with young children

List, John A.; Samak, Anya C.

doi:10.1016/j.econlet.2012.11.014

Cited by 29 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…A related series of papers have reported on other characteristics of the CHECC sample which are different from what is reported here, most notably social preferences (Cappelen et al, 2016;Ben-Ner et al, 2017;List and Samak, 2013;List et al, 2018) and competitiveness . This work also includes studies of the associations of economic preferences, cognitive abilities and executive functions at an early age with disciplinary referrals later in life (Castillo et al, 2018) and the development of Theory of Mind (Cowell et al, 2015;Charness et al, 2019 executive function tasks.…”

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confidence: 74%

Risk preferences of children and adolescents in relation to gender, cognitive skills, soft skills, and executive functions

Andreoni

Girolamo

List³

et al. 2020

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization

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We conduct experiments eliciting risk preferences with over 1,400 children and adolescents aged 3-15 years old. We complement our data with an assessment of cognitive and executive function skills. First, we find that adolescent girls display significantly greater risk aversion than adolescent boys. This pattern is not observed among young children, suggesting that the gender gap in risk preferences emerges in early adolescence. Second, we find that at all ages in our study, cognitive skills (specifically math ability) are positively associated with risk taking. Executive functions among children, and soft skills among adolescents, are negatively associated with risk taking. Third, we find that greater risk-tolerance is associated with higher likelihood of disciplinary referrals, which provides evidence that our task is equipped to measure a relevant behavioral outcome. For academics, our research provides a deeper understanding of the developmental origins of risk preferences and highlights the important role of cognitive and executive function skills to better understand the association between risk preferences and cognitive abilities over the studied age range.

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confidence: 74%

Risk preferences of children and adolescents in relation to gender, cognitive skills, soft skills, and executive functions

Andreoni

Girolamo

List³

et al. 2020

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization

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“…Child giving in our experiment is comparable to that in other dictator games with preschoolers: for example, in List and Samek (2013) children give about 25% of their marshmallow endowment to an anonymous recipient, while children in our experiment give away about 30% of their endowment. In the No Influence condition, 55% of children give less than half of their endowment, 34% give exactly half, and 11% give more than half.…”

Section: Overview Of Decisionssupporting

confidence: 57%

Learned Generosity? A Field Experiment with Parents and Their Children

et al. 2015

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Abstract An active area of research within the social sciences concerns the underlying motivation for sharing scarce resources and engaging in other pro-social actions. We develop a theoretical framework that sheds light on the developmental origins of social preferences by providing mechanisms through which parents transmit preferences for generosity to their children. Then, we conduct a field experiment with nearly 150 3-5 year old children and their parents, measuring (1) whether child and parent generosity is correlated, (2) whether children are influenced by their parents when making sharing decisions and (3) whether parents model generosity to children. We observe no correlation of independently measured parent and child sharing decisions at this young age. Yet, we find that apart from those choosing an equal allocation of resources between themselves and another child, children adjust their behaviors to narrow the gap with their parent's or other adult's choice. We find that fathers, and parents of initially generous children, increase their sharing when informed that their child will be shown their choice. Terms of use: Documents inJEL Classifications: C9, D1, D3

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“…Children were presented with visual stimuli depicting individuals in physical pain, and requested to either focus on how much pain these individuals were experiencing (to tap into the affective perspective taking component of empathy) or to report how sorry they felt for these individuals (to elicit the experience of empathic concern). To assess prosocial behavior, children were then tested in a widely used behavioral economics game, modified for use with children (children's dictator game; Benenson, Pascoe, & Radmore, 2007), which is commonly employed in developmental studies examining empathy and prosocial behaviors (Cowell et al, 2016;Li et al, 2013;List & Samak, 2013) across different cultures. Parent and child dispositions regarding empathy were also collected.…”

Section: Research Highlightsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To assess prosocial behavior, children were then tested in a widely used behavioral economics game, modified for use with children (children's dictator game; Benenson, Pascoe, & Radmore, 2007), which is commonly employed in developmental studies examining empathy and prosocial behaviors (Cowell et al, 2016;Li et al, 2013;List & Samak, 2013) across different cultures. To assess prosocial behavior, children were then tested in a widely used behavioral economics game, modified for use with children (children's dictator game; Benenson, Pascoe, & Radmore, 2007), which is commonly employed in developmental studies examining empathy and prosocial behaviors (Cowell et al, 2016;Li et al, 2013;List & Samak, 2013) across different cultures.…”

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confidence: 99%

The development of cognitive empathy and concern in preschool children: A behavioral neuroscience investigation

Decety

Meidenbauer

Cowell

2017

Developmental Science

101

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This developmental neuroscience study examined the electrophysiological responses (EEG and ERPs) associated with perspective taking and empathic concern in preschool children, as well as their relation to parental empathy dispositions and children's own prosocial behavior. Consistent with a body of previous studies using stimuli depicting somatic pain in both children and adults, larger early (~200 ms) ERPs were identified when perceiving painful versus neutral stimuli. In the slow wave window (~800 ms), a significant interaction of empathy condition and stimulus type was driven by a greater difference between painful and neutral images in the empathic concern condition. Across early development, children exhibited enhanced N2 to pain when engaging in empathic concern. Greater pain-elicited N2 responses in the cognitive empathy condition also related to parent dispositional empathy. Children's own prosocial behavior was predicted by several individual differences in neural function, including larger early LPP responses during cognitive empathy and greater differentiation in late LPP and slow wave responses to empathic concern versus affective perspective taking. Left frontal activation (greater alpha suppression) while engaging in affective perspective taking was also related to higher levels of parent cognitive empathy. Together, this multilevel analysis demonstrates the important distinction between facets of empathy in children; the value of examining neurobehavioral processes in development. It provides provoking links between children's neural functioning and parental dispositions in early development.

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Exploring the origins of charitable acts: Evidence from an artefactual field experiment with young children

Cited by 29 publications

References 11 publications

Risk preferences of children and adolescents in relation to gender, cognitive skills, soft skills, and executive functions

Risk preferences of children and adolescents in relation to gender, cognitive skills, soft skills, and executive functions

Learned Generosity? A Field Experiment with Parents and Their Children

The development of cognitive empathy and concern in preschool children: A behavioral neuroscience investigation

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