New University of Michigan research indicates that children as young as 5 incorporate market concerns<\/strong> — the idea that what you get is in line with what you give or offer — into their decision making<\/strong>, and increasingly do so with age.<\/p>\n Some people think children are innately selfish — they want to get goodies for themselves. Other people think children are innately altruistic — they care about helping others. Most people think children are both.<\/p>\n “The trick is knowing when and how to balance self interest and concern for others — what is appropriate in different circumstances,” said lead author Margaret Echelbarger, a recent U-M psychology doctoral graduate.<\/p>\n By studying how children engage in different types of exchanges, researchers can discern the origins of these behaviors, as well as their developmental course.<\/p>\n “This in turn tells us a bit more about ourselves as adults,” Echelbarger said.<\/p>\n The U-M research included 195 children ages 5-10 and 60 adults helping a giver distribute stickers to friends. They distributed stickers equally between friends when offers were the same, but unequally when different offers were made.<\/p>\n There were times when the participants distributed more stickers to the friends offering more money, which meant children — as they aged — were willing to abandon equal norms for distribution<\/strong>. More specifically, older children distributed more stickers to friends who paid more even when the other friend wanted to pay but couldn’t.<\/p>\n “These findings are especially interesting in light of young children’s limited exposure to market\/economic instruction,” Echelbarger said. “We show that, from a young age, children are developing an understanding of the ‘rules’ of market exchanges.”<\/p>\n Echelbarger and colleagues also found that children are sensitive to the reasons underlying the different offers<\/strong>. Children penalize recipients refusing to pay more than recipients willing but unable to pay, she said.<\/p>\n The findings, which appear in\u00a0Child Development<\/em>, are also consistent with prior research that children incorporate equity concerns, such as merit and need, into their distribution decisions.<\/p>\n The study’s authors also included Susan Gelman, the Heinz Werner Distinguished University Professor of Psychology and Linguistics at U-M; and Charles Kalish, professor of educational psychology at the University of Wisconsin.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From the University of Michigan press release: From a young age, children have a nuanced understanding of fairness. New University of Michigan research indicates that children as young as 5… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60],"tags":[45,18,127,28,160,74,73,363,12],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26763"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26763"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26763\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26975,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26763\/revisions\/26975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Scales.jpg\")
From a young age, children have a nuanced understanding of fairness.<\/strong><\/p>\n