Behavioural rules underlying learning to share: Effects of development and context

The development of children’s use of two social rules concerning learning to share with peers was examined in two studies. Past research on children’s cognitive reasoning suggests that with increasing age, children are less self-centred and more willing to share with others. At the same time, research with adolescents and adults indicates that the context exerts a strong impact on the degree of self-centred behaviour exhibited. In this research, actual sharing behaviour of children was examined in same-gender groups of four participants. Children from kindergarten and Grade 4 participated in Study 1 and children from kindergarten and Grade 1 participated in Study 2. Groups were given one toy to play with that explicitly indicated when a child’s turn was over and a second toy that did not indicate when a child’s turn was over. Interactions were videotaped and coded for degree of sharing versus inequality of toy use. Results from both studies supported the hypotheses that with development children become more egalitarian in their toy use and that regardless of age level children vary their level of egalitarian behaviour depending on the context. Learning to share is a fundamental developmental goal, as a growing child learns to balance decisions based simply on individual desires with more complex ones that include others