Collaboration shapes preschoolers’ ownership construal and sharing
Collaboration shapes preschoolers’ ownership construal and sharing
Zhen Zhang 1Zhen Wu2
作者信息
- 1. Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China;;State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Science and Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
- 2. Department of Psychology, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
- 折叠
摘要
Collaboration reliably increases young children’s sharing, yet the psychological processes underlying this effect remain unclear. The present studies, conducted in Beijing, China, examined whether a sense of joint ownership over collaboratively produced rewards contributes to this phenomenon. In Study 1, children aged 3-4 and 5-6 years (N = 320) were asked to share rewards with a fictional partner in a 2 × 2 design crossing work structure (collaborative vs. parallel work) and verbal ownership statements (joint vs. sole ownership). Overall, children shared more under joint than sole ownership after parallel work, whereas no reliable joint-sole difference emerged after collaborative work. Under sole-ownership framing, children shared more after collaborative than parallel work, whereas no reliable work-structure difference emerged under joint-ownership framing. These patterns are consistent with the possibility that collaborative work can support a joint-ownership construal, even under sole-ownership framing. Study 2 (N = 80) further showed that most 4- and 6-year-olds construed collaboratively earned rewards as jointly owned in the absence of an explicit ownership statement, a tendency particularly pronounced among 6-year-olds; such construals were associated with greater sharing. Together, the findings are consistent with joint ownership as one possible psychological link between collaboration and greater sharing among preschoolers.
Abstract
Collaboration reliably increases young childrens sharing, yet the psychological processes underlying this effect remain unclear. The present study examined whether a sense of joint ownership over collaboratively produced rewards contributes to this phenomenon. Preschoolers (N = 320) were asked to share rewards with a fictional partner in a 2 2 design that crossed work structure (collaboration vs. parallel work) with verbal ownership framing (joint vs. sole ownership). After parallel work, children in both age groups (34 and 56 years) shared more when rewards were described as jointly owned than when they were described as solely owned. In contrast, ownership framing had little effect following collaboration. Notably, when rewards were framed as belonging solely to the child, collaboration increased sharing relative to parallel work, whereas no difference emerged under joint-ownership framing. These findings suggest that collaboration may attenuate the behavioral impact of sole-ownership cues. A follow-up study (N = 80) further showed that children spontaneously attributed joint ownership to collaboratively earned rewards, and that such attributions were associated with greater sharing. Together, the results indicate that collaboration can induce a joint-ownership construal, which in turn supports preschoolers willingness to share.关键词
collaboration/ joint ownership/ effort/ sharing/ fairnessKey words
collaboration/ joint ownership/ effort/ sharing/ fairness引用本文复制引用
Zhen Zhang,Zhen Wu.Collaboration shapes preschoolers’ ownership construal and sharing[EB/OL].(2026-10-28)[2026-10-30].https://chinaxiv.org/abs/202610.00203.学科分类
教育
