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

• DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2022.105498
• Publication Date: 2022-07-14T21:42:29Z
• Authors: Natalie Christner; Markus Paulus
• Keywords: 4. Education; 05 social sciences; Child Behavior; Morals; Altruism; Child Development; Punishment; Child, Preschool; Humans; Female; 0501 psychology and cognitive sciences; Child; Social Behavior

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.