Varieties of normative understanding and their relation to sharing behavior in preschool children

Children increasingly appreciate normative obligations and share resources across the preschool years. But the internal structure and behavioral relevance of normative expressions in the context of sharing-that is, the relation with children's own sharing behavior-remains disputed. Here, 4- to 6-year-old children (N = 90; 37 female) observed protagonists sharing or not sharing resources. As measures of normative expressions, children's evaluation, punishment acceptability, non-costly punishment, and costly punishment of the protagonists as well as their moral self-concept were assessed. To measure actual prosocial behavior, children had the possibility to share resources. A factor analysis revealed that the variety of normative expressions constitutes two distinct factors: normative representation (evaluation and hypothetical punishment) and norm enforcement (actual non-costly and costly punishment). Children's moral self-concept was the only normative expression that related to sharing behavior. Person-centered analyses suggest some consistency in individual differences across normative and prosocial development, with normative expressions and sharing behavior being aligned for some children on a low level and for some children on a high level. This study advances our understanding of early normative development and highlights the internal structure of normative stances during the preschool years.