More intimate, more generous? Behaviour control can reduce children’s self-relevance effect in sharing behaviour

Children exhibit a self-relevance effect whereby they share more candies with close friends and acquaintances than with strangers. The present study aimed to reduce the negative consequences of self-relevance effects by enhancing the behavioural control of sharing behaviour. This study initiated two behavioural control levels to investigate sharing behaviours in children aged 5–6 years. Results revealed that children with high-behavioural control had elevated sharing levels compared with those with neutral behavioural control. Compared with strangers and acquaintances, children shared more with those who have close relationships with them. Switching from neutral behavioural control to high behavioural control can improve the range of children’s sharing level to strangers more than acquaintances and close friends. This suggests that the behavioural control did reduce the self-relevance effect, and the behavioural control was more effective in improving the children’s sharing behaviour with strangers than acquaintances and close friends.