The role of personal values in children's costly sharing and non-costly giving

Area of Science:

• Developmental Psychology
• Social Psychology
• Behavioral Science

Background:

• Children's values, abstract motivations guiding behavior, are crucial for understanding personality development.
• Previous research has primarily focused on adult value structures and their behavioral correlates.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the organization of values in children (ages 5-12) and compare it to adult structures.
• To examine if children's values predict individual differences in sharing behaviors (costly vs. non-costly).
• To determine if situational norms affect the expression of value-behavior links in children.

Main Methods:

• A sample of 243 children (ages 5-12) completed a values ranking task.
• 150 children participated in costly and non-costly sharing tasks.
• Statistical analyses examined value structure, prediction of sharing, and moderation by situation, age, and sex.

Main Results:

• Children as young as 5 exhibit value structures similar to adolescents and adults, contrasting self-transcendence with self-enhancement and openness with conservation.
• Self-transcendence values positively predicted costly sharing, but not non-costly giving.
• The link between values and costly sharing was less pronounced in more normative sharing situations.
• Children's sex and age moderated the relationship between values and behavior.

Conclusions:

• Children's values are organized similarly to adults from an early age, reflecting core motivational principles.
• Value-behavior associations, particularly for costly sharing, are influenced by situational norms and individual differences.
• Understanding children's values is essential for research on prosocial development and individual differences in behavior.