Playing a cooperative game promotes preschoolers’ sharing with third-parties, but not social inclusion

Abstract

This study examined the effect of gaming context on young children’s prosocial behaviors. Dyads of 4- to 5-year-old children ( N = 96) played the same game cooperatively, competitively, or solitarily. After playing the game for a total of ten minutes, sharing with and social inclusion of uninvolved third-parties as well as free play with previous co-players was observed. Children shared less with third-parties after playing the game competitively than after playing it cooperatively. Playing a solitary game resulted in intermediate levels of sharing. The structure of the game did not differentially impact measures of social inclusion or free play.

The influence of cooperation and competition on preschoolers' prosociality toward in-group and out-group members

“…The current study aimed to examine these two effects and to replicate the findings of Spielman [31] and Toppe et al [56]. Like Toppe et al [56], we used a dyadic game (after this referred to as an intervention game) to elicit a cooperative, competitive and solitary orientation. After playing the intervention game, we assessed 4-to 6-year-old children's sharing and social inclusion behaviour in a minimal group situation.…”

“…However, controlling the game's outcome might allow more robust conclusions on the effect of different gaming contexts since the dynamic of the game would be kept constant between subjects. Second, Toppe et al [56] did not consider children's engagement in the royalsocietypublishing.org/journal/rsos R. Soc. Open Sci.…”

“…Further, children share more resources with uninvolved third-parties after experiencing long-time cooperative gaming interventions as compared with control conditions comprising regular education practices [53][54][55]. Toppe et al [56] examined the short-term effect of different interdependent contexts on prosociality directed toward a third-party. In the study, dyads of 4-to 5-year-old children played a game either cooperatively, competitively or solitarily to elicit the respective psychological orientation.…”

“…While these findings point to the importance of a cooperative psychological orientation on children's sharing, methodological limitations still hinder conclusions. First, although it was included as a statistical control variable, the study design by Toppe et al [56] did not experimentally control the outcome of the game (i.e. winning or losing).…”

“…Hence, children's engagement might interact with the different forms of interdependence and account for inter-individual differences within experimental conditions, and should be considered as a predictor for children's prosociality. Finally, Toppe et al [56] used a highly interactive game to elicit a cooperative and competitive psychological orientation. That is, children needed to constantly coordinate their actions with their co-players in order to be successful.…”