The Influence of Considering Others' Emotions on Children's Resource Distribution

ABSTRACT

Understanding how one's actions affect others' emotions is an important aspect of prosocial development. Extending prior findings with adults, this study investigated whether predicting future emotional messages from the recipient could enhance preschoolers' altruistic sharing. In Experiment 1, 4‐ to 6‐year‐old Korean children played a dictator game in which they allocated stickers between themselves and a monkey puppet. The children in the experimental condition were informed that the monkey would draw a picture of how he felt about the number of stickers received, while those in the control condition received no such information. Children in the experimental condition shared more generously overall, particularly among 4‐ and 5‐year‐olds. Six‐year‐olds allocated resources about equally between two conditions, resembling Korean adults' preference for equality observed in a pilot study. Experiment 2 tested whether the effect was driven specifically by considering others' emotions rather than anticipating feedback in general. Children were told they would receive an unspecified ‘message’ from the recipient, but no differences in sharing emerged between conditions. Thus, just anticipating any message or feedback from the recipient did not promote children's altruistic resource allocation. The results suggest that considering others' emotions promotes altruistic behaviours in young children.