Developmental Patterns in Cooperative Contexts: How Children Integrate Social Strategy and Resource Endowment in Third-Party Responses

This cross-sectional study examined how children integrated social strategy and initial resource endowment when responding to others as third-party observers in a cooperative context. Using an age-appropriate collective dilemma game, 141 Chinese children observed fictional peers choosing among cooperation, self-reliance, and free-riding strategies under conditions of high or low resource endowment, yielding a 3 (strategy) × 2 (resource endowment) experimental design. Children responded to each target through punishment, social evaluation, and partner choice. Results showed a strong preference for high-resource individuals among younger children (ages 5–6), which diminished with age, suggesting a developmental shift away from reliance on external cues such as resource. Across all age groups, children consistently responded most negatively to free riders, regardless of resource endowment, indicating their moral sensitivity to exploitative intent and fairness violations. Importantly, self-reliant individuals with high resources were viewed more favorably than those with low resources, indicating that children adjust their responses based on social strategy and resource endowment. These findings suggest two key developmental patterns: (1) an age-related decline in resource-based preferences and (2) early-emerging ability that enables children to weigh contextual cues when responding to non-cooperative behaviors. The study highlights age-related patterns in children’s third-party responses, reflecting their sensitivity to both social strategy and situational information in cooperative contexts.