The role of affiliation in the development of collaborative partner choice

Collaboration is an early emerging component of successful cooperative relations that produces a cascade of positive social preferences between collaborators. Concurrently, robust preferences for affiliated others may restrict these benefits to in-group peers. We investigated how in-group affiliation (based on minimal group markers) and interpersonal affiliation (based on shared preferences) influence children's collaborative partner choice. We asked whether children prefer to collaborate with affiliated peers and if highlighting interpersonal affiliation with out-group members reduce in-group bias in partner choice. In Study 1, we assigned children (4-9 years, N = 124, 62 female, two nonbinary) to either a group or interpersonal affiliation condition and gave them a choice of collaborating with either an affiliated (in-group or same preference) or unaffiliated (out-group or different preference) peer. While children preferred affiliated peers in both conditions, interpersonal affiliation had a greater influence than group affiliation on collaborative partner choice among younger participants. With age, the difference between children's preference for affiliated peers in the interpersonal and group affiliation condition declined until they were similar in middle childhood. In Study 2, we assessed whether shared preferences would override in-group bias when these factors were directly contrasted. Children (4-9 years, N = 62, 33 female) chose between an in-group/different preference or out-group/same preferences peer. Younger children preferred the out-group/same preference peer, a preference that diminished with age to chance levels in middle childhood. These findings suggest that affiliation is an important determinant of collaborative partner choice and that shared preferences can override in-group bias in children's collaborative partner choice. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).