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

Abstract

Past research suggests that children favour their in-group members over out-group members as indicated by selective prosociality such as sharing or social inclusion. This preregistered study examined how playing a cooperative, competitive or solitary game influences German 4- to 6-year-olds’ in-group bias and their general willingness to act prosocially, independent of the recipient's group membership ( N = 144). After playing the game, experimenters introduced minimal groups and assessed children's sharing with an in-group and an out-group member as well as their social inclusion of an out-group member into an in-group interaction. Furthermore, we assessed children's physical engagement and parents' social dominance orientation (SDO)—a scale indicating the preference for inequality among social groups—to learn more about inter-individual differences in children's prosocial behaviours. Results suggest that children showed a stronger physical engagement while playing competitively as compared with cooperatively or alone. The different gaming contexts did not impact children's subsequent in-group bias or general willingness to act prosocially. Parental SDO was not linked to children's prosocial behaviours. These results indicate that competition can immediately affect children's behaviour while playing but raise doubt on the importance of cooperative and competitive play for children's subsequent intergroup and prosocial behaviour.

Priming third-party social exclusion does not elicit children's inclusion of out-group members

“…Despite the variation in children's inclusion across societies, the vast majority of children decided to either include the approaching puppet immediately in the first rally or refrained from doing so. Notably, this pattern resembles previous work [ 33 , 35 , 36 ], flagging children's inclusion as an inherently decisive behaviour. Accordingly, children's initial decision to integrate others into their activities determines their subsequent behaviours.…”

“…Such variation complements past research on children's inclusion (e.g. [33,[35][36][37]53]) and points to the significance of cultural context for shaping this inter-group behaviour.…”

“…Regardless of condition, children's inclusion increased from ages 3 to 6, suggesting a steady developmental increase in preschoolers' inclusive attitude [33]. However, this developmental trajectory did not replicate in a follow-up study [36]. In a second study [35], the authors used a similar paradigm to assess potential effects of prior interactions on children's social inclusion.…”

“…It grants individuals access to the benefits of social groups while fulfilling their need to belong [ 34 ]. In three recent studies, German preschoolers' social inclusion was assessed in an interactive paradigm [ 33 , 35 , 36 ]. Children played a ball-tossing game with a hand puppet.…”

Octonauts - National Identity and Attribution Theory

“…Examinations of intergroup conflict in media, such as between anemones, and damselfish and other fish, can address calls to develop our understanding of how intergroup conflict influences the development of prosocial behaviors in children (Toppe et al, 2021;Zhu et al, 2015). Within these specific episodes, intergroup conflict is represented in a negative manner, highlighting the disadvantages to crabs, fish and the coral reef, and how conflict prevents the realisation of goals such as obtaining food and guaranteeing living space.…”