The effect of different types of social norms on children's sharing behavior: The roles of parents, teachers, and peers

Abstract As children develop, they are exposed to social norms that help them adapt to society. Here, the current study used an adapted dictator game to investigate whether exposure to a generous norm (sharing 80 yuan) or a selfish norm (sharing 20 yuan) would influence the sharing behavior of children. Participants were 1983 third‐ to fifth‐graders from five primary schools in mainland China (two in Beijing and three in Shandong). Norms were presented in the written format in which children were told the amount of personal resources that most of their parents/teachers/peers shared with a recipient (descriptive norms) or thought they should share with a recipient (injunctive norms). The results showed that children were more affected by generous norms than selfish norms. Moreover, when presented with generous norms, children were more sensitive to descriptive norms than to injunctive norms and they shared more when they were exposed to selfish descriptive norms than selfish injunctive norms. Additionally, children shared more and were more likely to comply with norms from teachers and peers in the generous condition, but they were less likely to comply with peers and deviated more from the undesirable norm from peers in the selfish condition. Together, our findings indicate the crucial importance of social norm information for the promotion of children's sharing behavior in China.