Don’t you wish your child knew about sharing and would just stop saying, “That’s not fair!”? Your child may, in fact, be fully aware of fairness and sharing, according to a recent study from the University of Washington. The study, which involved showing videos and then sharing toys, showed that children as young as 15 months in age recognize unfairness.
Scientists, before, had shown that 2 year olds are capable of recognizing sharing and fairness, but the new study indicates that children identify them at younger ages. In the University of Washington study, a group of 47 babies were shown two videos: one of food being divided evenly between two people, and another of food being divided unevenly. As the babies watched, some stared at the video of food being divided unevenly. Babies, according to scientists, stare when surprised by something.
The second portion of the study was more interactive. The babies were given two toys each, and the researchers indicated that they would like to have one. Two-thirds of the babies offered to share, but how they did it was not uniform. Some babies offered their preferred toy to share, and this group was labeled as “altruistic sharers.” Other babies offered their least-preferred toy, and this group was dubbed “selfish sharers.”
Out of these two groups, the altruistic sharers were more likely to stare at the video of the food being divided up unevenly. Selfish sharers, on the other hand, were more inclined to look at the video of the food being divided up evenly. Regarding the results, Jessica Sommerville, who led the study, mentioned:
“Our findings show that these norms of fairness and altruism are more rapidly acquired than we thought. The infants expected an equal and fair distribution of food, and they were surprised to see one person given more crackers or milk than the other.”
October 21st, 2011 at 10:09 am
[...] on the two studies, babies dubbed “altruistic sharers” were more likely to stare at the video of the food divided [...]
October 28th, 2011 at 3:16 pm
[...] examining the results of both halves, the scientists found that the altruistic sharers were more inclined to stare at the [...]