IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/feb/artefa/00450.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Curious Relation Between Theory of Mind and Sharing in Preschool Age Children

Author

Listed:
  • Daniel Houser
  • John List
  • Anya Samek

Abstract

Young children have long been known to act selfishly and gradually appear to become more generous across middle childhood. While this apparent change has been well documented, the underlying mechanisms supporting this remain unclear. The current study examined the role of early theory of mind and executive functioning in facilitating sharing in a large sample (N = 98) of preschoolers. Results reveal a curious relation between early false-belief understanding and sharing behavior. Contrary to many commonsense notions and predominant theories, competence in this ability is actually related to less sharing. Thus, the relation between developing theory of mind and sharing may not be as straightforward as it seems in preschool age children. It is precisely the children who can engage in theory of mind that decide to share less with others.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel Houser & John List & Anya Samek, 2015. "The Curious Relation Between Theory of Mind and Sharing in Preschool Age Children," Artefactual Field Experiments 00450, The Field Experiments Website.
  • Handle: RePEc:feb:artefa:00450
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://s3.amazonaws.com/fieldexperiments-papers2/papers/00450.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ernst Fehr & Helen Bernhard & Bettina Rockenbach, 2008. "Egalitarianism in young children," Nature, Nature, vol. 454(7208), pages 1079-1083, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Andreoni, James & Kuhn, Michael A. & List, John A. & Samek, Anya & Sokal, Kevin & Sprenger, Charles, 2019. "Toward an understanding of the development of time preferences: Evidence from field experiments," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 177(C), pages 1-1.
    2. John A. List & Ragan Petrie & Anya Samek, 2023. "How Experiments with Children Inform Economics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 61(2), pages 504-564, June.
    3. Zvonimir Bašić & Parampreet C. Bindra & Daniela Glätzle-Rützler & Angelo Romano & Matthias Sutter & Claudia Zoller, 2021. "The Roots of Cooperation," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 097, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    4. Levin, Tova & Levitt, Steven D. & List, John A., 2023. "A Glimpse into the world of high capacity givers: Experimental evidence from a university capital campaign," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 212(C), pages 644-658.
    5. Andrea Khalfaoui & Rocío García-Carrión & Lourdes Villardón-Gallego & Elena Duque, 2020. "Help and Solidarity Interactions in Interactive Groups: A Case Study with Roma and Immigrant Preschoolers," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 9(7), pages 1-17, July.
    6. Andreoni, James & Di Girolamo, Amalia & List, John A. & Mackevicius, Claire & Samek, Anya, 2020. "Risk preferences of children and adolescents in relation to gender, cognitive skills, soft skills, and executive functions," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 729-742.
    7. Charness, Gary & List, John A. & Rustichini, Aldo & Samek, Anya & Van De Ven, Jeroen, 2019. "Theory of mind among disadvantaged children: Evidence from a field experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 174-194.
    8. John A. List, 2022. "Enhancing critical thinking skill formation: Getting fast thinkers to slow down," The Journal of Economic Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(1), pages 100-108, January.
    9. Zvonimir Bašic & Parampreet C. Bindra & Daniela Glätzle-Rützler & Angelo Romano & Matthias Sutter & Claudia Zoller, 2024. "The roots of cooperation," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2024_02, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Brocas, Isabelle & Carrillo, Juan D. & Combs, T. Dalton & Kodaverdian, Niree, 2019. "The development of consistent decision-making across economic domains," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 217-240.
    2. Fabian Kosse & Thomas Deckers & Pia Pinger & Hannah Schildberg-Hörisch & Armin Falk, 2020. "The Formation of Prosociality: Causal Evidence on the Role of Social Environment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(2), pages 434-467.
    3. Hugh-Jones, David & Ooi, Jinnie, 2023. "Where do fairness preferences come from? Norm transmission in a teen friendship network," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    4. Fischbacher, Urs & Schudy, Simeon & Teyssier, Sabrina, 2021. "Heterogeneous preferences and investments in energy saving measures," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    5. Fehr, Ernst & Glätzle-Rützler, Daniela & Sutter, Matthias, 2013. "The development of egalitarianism, altruism, spite and parochialism in childhood and adolescence," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 369-383.
    6. Matthias Sutter & Francesco Feri & Martin G. Kocher & Peter Martinsson & Katarina Nordblom & Daniela Rützler, 2010. "Social preferences in childhood and adolescence - A large-scale experiment," Working Papers 2010-13, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
    7. Isabelle Brocas & Juan D. Carrillo, 2022. "The development of randomization and deceptive behavior in mixed strategy games," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 13(2), pages 825-862, May.
    8. Kai Barron & Heike Harmgart & Steffen Huck & Sebastian O. Schneider & Matthias Sutter, 2023. "Discrimination, Narratives, and Family History: An Experiment with Jordanian Host and Syrian Refugee Children," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 105(4), pages 1008-1016, July.
    9. Zenou, Yves & Boucher, Vincent & Tumen, Semih & Vlassopoulos, Michael & Wahba, Jackline, 2020. "Ethnic Mixing in Early Childhood: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment and a Structural Model," CEPR Discussion Papers 15528, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. John, Katrin & Thomsen, Stephan L., 2015. "School-track environment or endowment: What determines different other-regarding behavior across peer groups?," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 122-141.
    11. Pamela Jakiela & Edward Miguel & Vera Velde, 2015. "You’ve earned it: estimating the impact of human capital on social preferences," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 18(3), pages 385-407, September.
    12. Breitkopf, Laura & Chowdhury, Shyamal K. & Priyam, Shambhavi & Schildberg-Hörisch, Hannah & Sutter, Matthias, 2020. "Do economic preferences of children predict behavior?," DICE Discussion Papers 342, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    13. Valeria Maggian & Marie Claire Villeval, 2016. "Social preferences and lying aversion in children," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 19(3), pages 663-685, September.
    14. Angerer, Silvia & Glätzle-Rützler, Daniela & Lergetporer, Philipp & Sutter, Matthias, 2015. "Donations, risk attitudes and time preferences: A study on altruism in primary school children," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 67-74.
    15. Kerstin Grosch & Simone Haeckl & Martin G. Kocher, 2022. "Closing the Gender STEM Gap - A Large-Scale Randomized-Controlled Trial in Elementary Schools," CESifo Working Paper Series 9907, CESifo.
    16. Bartoš, Vojtěch, 2021. "Seasonal scarcity and sharing norms," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 185(C), pages 303-316.
    17. Costa-Font, Joan & Jofre-Bonet, Mireia, 2020. "Is the intergenerational transmission of overweight ‘gender assortative’?," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 39(C).
    18. Yamamura, Eiji, 2012. "Effects of siblings and birth order on income redistribution preferences," MPRA Paper 38658, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Maria Gräfenhain & Malinda Carpenter & Michael Tomasello, 2013. "Three-Year-Olds’ Understanding of the Consequences of Joint Commitments," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(9), pages 1-12, September.
    20. Bartoš, Vojtěch & Levely, Ian, 2021. "Sanctioning and trustworthiness across ethnic groups: Experimental evidence from Afghanistan," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:feb:artefa:00450. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: David Franks (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.fieldexperiments.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.