Title: Children's reciprocal altruism in a competitive game
Abstract: Groups of 6‐, 8‐ and 11‐year‐old children were tested in a competitive game situation under one of two treatment conditions—their confederate/opponents always voluntarily helped them, or their confederate/opponents were compelled always to help them. At the end of the game playing, children were questioned about the confederate's motivation for helping them. On the measures of reciprocity—percentage help returned to confederates, and number of games confederates were allowed to win—children showed greater reciprocity under the voluntary than compulsory conditions. There were no age affects, nor age × treatment condition interactions. Perceived motivation varied with both age of children and treatment condition, forming a different pattern of results than that for the reciprocity behaviour. It was concluded that the context in which help was received significantly affected children's reciprocal altruism, but that perceived motivation had independent effects.
Publication Year: 1985
Publication Date: 1985-11-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
Access and Citation
Cited By Count: 19
AI Researcher Chatbot
Get quick answers to your questions about the article from our AI researcher chatbot