Human cooperative behavior has long been thought to decline under adversity. However, studies have primarily examined perceived patterns of cooperation, with little eye to actual cooperative... Show moreHuman cooperative behavior has long been thought to decline under adversity. However, studies have primarily examined perceived patterns of cooperation, with little eye to actual cooperative behavior embedded within social interaction. Game-theoretical paradigms can help close this gap by unpacking subtle differences in how cooperation unfolds during initial encounters. This study is the first to use a child-appropriate, virtual, public goods game to study actual cooperative behavior in 329 participants aged 9-16 years with histories of maltreatment (n = 99) and no maltreatment (n = 230) while controlling for psychiatric symptoms. Unlike work on perceived patterns of cooperation, we found that maltreated participants actually contribute more resources to a public good during peer interaction than their nonmaltreated counterparts. This effect was robust when controlling for psychiatric symptoms and peer problems as well as demographic variables. We conclude that maltreatment may engender a hyper-cooperative strategy to minimize the odds of hostility and preserve positive interaction during initial encounters. This, however, comes at the cost of potential exploitation by others. Show less
Recently, infants younger than 2 years have been shown to display correct expectations of the actions of an agent with a false belief. The developmental trajectory of these early-developing... Show moreRecently, infants younger than 2 years have been shown to display correct expectations of the actions of an agent with a false belief. The developmental trajectory of these early-developing abilities and their robustness, however, remain a matter of debate. Here, we tested children longitudinally from 2 to 4 years of age with an established anticipatory looking false belief task, and found a significant developmental change between the ages of 3 and 4 years. Children anticipated correctly only by the age of 4 years, and performed at chance at the ages of 2 and 3 years. Moreover, we found correct anticipation only when the agent falsely believed an object to be in its last rather than a previous location. These findings point towards the fragility of early belief-related action anticipation before the age of 4 years, when children start passing traditional false belief tasks. Show less
When misfortune befalls another, humans may feel distress, leading to a motivation to escape. When such misfortune is perceived as justified, however, it may be experienced as rewarding and lead to... Show moreWhen misfortune befalls another, humans may feel distress, leading to a motivation to escape. When such misfortune is perceived as justified, however, it may be experienced as rewarding and lead to motivation to witness the misfortune. We explored when in human ontogeny such a motivation emerges and whether the motivation is shared by chimpanzees. Chimpanzees and four- to six-year-old children learned through direct interaction that an agent was either prosocial or antisocial and later saw each agent’s punishment. They were given the option to invest physical effort (chimpanzees) or monetary units (children) to continue watching. Chimpanzees and six-year-olds showed a preference for watching punishment of the antisocial agent. An additional control experiment in chimpanzees suggests that these results cannot be attributed to more generic factors such as scene coherence or informational value seeking. This indicates that both six-year-olds and chimpanzees have a motivation to watch deserved punishment enacted. Show less
Grosse Wiesmann, C.; Friederici, A.D.; Singer, T.; Steinbeis, N. 2017
This paper reviews the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying prosocial development in childhood. I begin by arguing that most prosociality is costly. This cost needs to be regulated for prosocial... Show moreThis paper reviews the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying prosocial development in childhood. I begin by arguing that most prosociality is costly. This cost needs to be regulated for prosocial behavior to occur. The precise regulatory mechanisms depend on the type of prosocial behavior and include behavioral control in the case of sharing and emotion regulation in the case of helping. I review evidence that these regulatory mechanisms are subserved by prefrontal cortical circuitry, which depending on the mechanism interacts with different brain regions coding for self-related and other-related affect to produce prosocial behavior. I conclude that the maturation of prefrontal cortical circuitry drives the development of both sharing and helping in childhood through supporting the emergence of relevant regulatory mechanisms. Show less
Young children endorse norms of fairness but rarely act on them. We investigated whether a failure of behavioral control can partially explain why children do not share more generously than they do... Show moreYoung children endorse norms of fairness but rarely act on them. We investigated whether a failure of behavioral control can partially explain why children do not share more generously than they do. We experimentally manipulated behavioral control and observed its effects on sharing in 120 children aged 6–9 years of age. Using a between-participants design, we presented children with stories in which a protagonist either exerted behavioral control in an unrelated context or not. Following this, children engaged in a sharing task. We found that children who had been read a story promoting behavioral control shared more than children who had been read a neutral story. This effect held over two different types of instruction. Perceptions of fairness, on the other hand, were identical across conditions. These findings speak to the importance of behavioral control in prosocial behavior, and specifically sharing, during middle childhood. Show less
McAuliffe, K.; Blake, P.R.; Steinbeis, N.; Warneken, F. 2017
New behavioural and neuroscientific evidence on the development of fairness behaviours demonstrates that the signatures of human fairness can be traced into childhood. Children make sacrifices for... Show moreNew behavioural and neuroscientific evidence on the development of fairness behaviours demonstrates that the signatures of human fairness can be traced into childhood. Children make sacrifices for fairness (1) when they have less than others, (2) when others have been unfair and (3) when they have more than others. The latter two responses mark a critical departure from what is observed in other species because they enable fairness to be upheld even when doing so goes against self-interest. This new work can be fruitfully combined with insights from cognitive neuroscience to understand the mechanisms of developmental change. Show less
