Children's Social Category-Based Giving and Its Correlates: Expectations and Preferences

Do young children use information about gender and race to guide their prosocial gestures, and to what extent is children's selective prosociality related to other intergroup phenomena? Two studies tested 3- to 5-year-old children's allocation of resources to, social preferences for, and e...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Developmental psychology 2015-04, Vol.51 (4), p.533-543
Main Authors: Renno, Maggie P, Shutts, Kristin
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
African Americans
Child Behavior - psychology
Child, Preschool
Children
Children & youth
Choice Behavior
Continental Population Groups
Correlation
Correlation analysis
Developmental psychology
European Continental Ancestry Group
Expectation
Expectations
Fairness
Female
Gender
Human
Human Sex Differences
Humans
Male
Preferences
Prosocial Behavior
Race
Racial and Ethnic Differences
Resource Allocation
Sex
Sex Factors
Social Perception
Social skills
United States (Midwest)
Whites
Young Children
Youth
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Summary:Do young children use information about gender and race to guide their prosocial gestures, and to what extent is children's selective prosociality related to other intergroup phenomena? Two studies tested 3- to 5-year-old children's allocation of resources to, social preferences for, and expectations about the behaviors of unfamiliar people who varied by gender or race. In both studies, a predominantly White sample of participants gave more resources to same-gender and White children than to other-gender and Black children, respectively. Correlational analyses showed that participants' gender-based giving was related to their social preferences for, and expectations about receiving help from, children who matched their gender. Race-based giving was only related to participants' expectations that they would be more likely to receive help from White than from Black children. The findings show that gender and race can guide children's resource distribution behavior and also provide insight into factors underlying children's allocation decisions.
ISSN:0012-1649
1939-0599
DOI:10.1037/a0038819