What do children value more in a collaborator - Problem-solving capacity or fair sharing?
What do children value more in a collaborator - Problem-solving capacity or fair sharing?
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Authors
Myślińska-Szarek, Katarzyna
Warneken, Felix
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Date
2025-01
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Journal title
Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
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Volume
249
Pages
Pages
1-18
ISSN
0022-0965
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Access date
2026-09-17
Abstract PL
Abstract EN
Collaboration requires individuals to find partners who are adept at problem-solving and act fairly when sharing the spoils of joint labor. Given that individuals might vary along both dimensions, it can create a dilemma with the challenging decision of whether to prioritize a potential partner’s capacity to perform a task or the partner’s level of fairness in sharing obtained resources. Here we tested whether young children can solve this dilemma when two potential partners have opposing qualities: One partner is high in the capacity to solve a problem but less likely to share fairly, whereas the other partner is lower in capacity but fair. In two studies with a total of N = 188 children aged 4 to 6 years, we found that children adjust their decisions based on the social context and the perceived difficulty of the collaborative task: Children show an overall preference for fair partners when collaborating in an easy task, but they choose partners high in problem-solving capacity and low in fairness when collaborating in a more difficult task. These results show that already young children can evaluate others along two dimensions and make trade-offs between capacity and fairness when deciding what is more relevant for a given situation.
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Keywords PL
Keywords EN
Fairness
Capacity
Preschoolers
Prosociality
Cooperation
Morality
Capacity
Preschoolers
Prosociality
Cooperation
Morality
Keywords other
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