Children’s competitive behavior: A challenging alternative

The effect of challenge on the cooperative and competitive behavior of 120 urban American children was assessed using two experimental game apparatuses, one of which provided a challenging cooperative response. Significantly more cooperation was observed when the subjects were presented with a challenging cooperative response. In addition, a reliable age effect was found indicating that the older subject group (10–12 years old) was more cooperative than the younger two age groups (5–7 and 8–10 years old). Finally, a significant game condition x order interaction was discovered suggesting that under some conditions the order in which the games were played affected the degree of subject cooperation. Results are related to a theory of competence motivation. It is argued that cooperation among American children may be increased if the task involves the presence of challenge. A portion of this research was presented at the biennial meetings of the Society for Research in Child Development, Detroit, Michigan, 1983.     

A COMPARISON BETWEEN CHILDREN AND ADULTS IN A PRISONERS' DILEMMA GAME

S jöberg , L., B okander , I., D encik , L. & L indbom , K. A comparison between children and adults in a prisoner's dilemma game. Scand. J. Psychol ., 1969, 10 , 158–166.— A comparative study using three different stooge strategies. The game was played for a total of 67 trials. Children (4–6 years old) exhibited more cooperation than adults, and a stronger tendency to make a cooperative move after own defection, regardless of outcome. Both the frequency of cooperative moves and the state-conditioned propensities showed some stability over time and similar intercorrelations for adults and children.     

Confounding effects of individualism in children's cooperation — Competition social motive measures

The exact nature of cooperation — competition differences among children has remained obscure because the effect of individualistic motivation has important but unanalyzed influence on the frequency of cooperative and competitive responding. In order to clarify the nature of cultural differences in cooperation — competition, a novel social motive game was developed that provides distinct cooperative, competitive, and individualist alternatives. The measure was administered to 120 fourth-through sixth-grade Anglo-American and Mexican-American children of lower- and upper-middle-income levels. Consistent with previous research, Mexican-American children were generally more cooperative than Anglo-American children. Contrary to previous conclusions, however, individualism, not competition, was the strongest social motive among children, and Anglo-American children were generally more individualistic but not generally more competitive than Mexican-American children. Culture findings challenge both the methods and the results of previous cooperation — competition studies.The present research was partially supported by a University of California Intramural Research Grant No. 5-538404-19900-5. The authors are grateful to Jan Allison, Allen Binegar, and Robert Green for their assistance in the data collection.     

Personalising game difficulty to keep children motivated to play with a social robot: A Bayesian approach

For effective child education, playing games with a social robot should be motivating for a longer period of time. One aspect that can affect the motivation of a child is the difficulty of a game. The game should be perceived as challenging, while at the same time, the child should be confident to meet the challenge. We designed a user modelling module that adapts the difficulty of a game to the child’s skill level, in order to provide children with the optimal challenge. This module applies a Bayesian rating method that estimates the child’s skill and game item’s difficulty levels to personalise the game progress. In an experiment with 22 children (aged between 10 and 12 years old), we tested whether the personalisation leads to a higher motivation to play with the robot. Although the personalised system did not challenge the participants optimally, this study shows that the Bayesian rating system is in principle able to measure the skill and performance of children in playing a game with a robot (even without accurate estimates of the difficulty of items). We outline multiple ways in which the rating method and module can be used to further personalise and enhance the child-robot interaction, other than adapting the difficulty of games (e.g. by adapting the dialogue and feedback).     

高功能孤独症儿童的合作行为

合作行为是一种重要的亲社会行为, 对儿童的社会适应具有重要意义, 而孤独症儿童的典型特征是社会功能存在缺陷, 从而导致合作行为的缺乏。以往研究未能就孤独症儿童在不同合作任务类型中的表现做出区分, 本研究采用经典的囚徒困境博弈和合作性工具任务比较了6~12岁的高功能孤独症儿童和正常发展儿童在不同任务中的合作行为。结果显示高功能孤独症儿童和正常儿童在囚徒困境中的合作行为没有显著差异, 然而, 他们在工具性任务中表现出比正常儿童更低水平的合作行为。这说明高功能孤独症儿童在对认知能力有不同要求的合作任务中的表现不同。     

Forward masking in young children: Rocketship psychophysics

A three-alternative forced choice forward masking procedure was embedded in an arcade-style rocketship video game. Human subjects were categorized into five groups; adults and 5-, 6-, 7-, and 8-year-old children. The masker was a 500-msec noise that simulated rocket engines and the 20-msec, 500-Hz sinusoidal signal was achirp from agremlin. The gremlin hid, at random, in one of the three rockets. Subjects responded and interacted with the game by touching the rocket hiding the gremlin. Results revealed that masked thresholds decreased for all groups as a function of the interstimulus interval. The reliability of the psychophysical approach was confirmed and a developmental trend lends support to the hypothesis that auditory processing improves as a function of age. Children’s auditory filters were suggested to be functionally larger than those of adults. Portions of this paper were presented at the Second Annual Convention of the American Psychological Society, June 7–10, 1990, Dallas, Texas.     

Parent-child interactions during joint engagement with touchscreen technology: A comparison of younger versus older toddlers

With a plethora of touchscreen apps aimed at young children, parents are receiving mixed messages about the appropriateness of such technology for their toddlers. The American Academy of Pediatrics (2016) advises limited engagement with digital media for this age group and encourages parents to co-engage with children when they are using screens. However, very little is known about parent-child interaction in the context of joint engagement with digital screen media in the toddler years. This study observed 56 toddlers (M = 32.5 months old; 53 % female) and a parent (52 mothers; 4 fathers) performing a 3-minute drawing task on a touchscreen tablet (digital condition), and on an Etch-A-Sketch (non-digital condition) using a repeated measures design. Observations were analysed using global ratings of dyadic interaction, comparing warmth, cooperation and conflict between digital and non-digital conditions. A mixed MANCOVA analysis, controlling for levels of daily usage of touchscreens, revealed lower levels of parent-child cooperation and warmth in the digital condition compared to the non-digital condition. In addition, there was a main effect of age with younger dyads displaying less cooperation overall, particularly in the digital condition where interactions were also less warm. Results suggest that co-engaging with digital technology can be a challenging and potentially emotionally charged context for both parents and young children. Younger toddlers, especially, may be more likely to experience less cooperative interactions when co-engaging with digital technology with a parent. Results are discussed in relation to developmental differences between 2- and 3-year olds, and the need for more nuanced guidance for parents supporting young children’s interaction with digital media.     

BatMon II: Children’s category norms for 33 categories

Four hundred forty-eight children 3–12 years of age generated category exemplars for 33 distinct categories. The percentage of the participants reporting each exemplar, the percentage of the participants reporting each exemplar first, the percentage of the participants reporting each exemplar across age groups (3–5 years, 6–8 years, and 9–12 years), and the mean rank of each exemplar are presented. A full version of the 29 category norms may be downloaded from www.psychonomic.org/archive.     

Does parochial cooperation exist in childhood and adolescence? A meta-analysis

Although previous meta-analytic evidence supports the existence of parochialism in cooperation among adults, the extent to which children and adolescents are more willing to incur a personal cost to benefit ingroups, compared to outgroups, is not yet clear. We provide the first meta-analysis on the existence and magnitude of parochialism in cooperation among pre-adults. Based on 20 experimental economics studies (k = 69, N = 5268, age = 3–19, 12 countries, published 2008–2019), a multilevel meta-analytic model revealed a small overall effect size indicating that children and adolescents were more cooperative towards ingroups (d = 0.22, 95% CI [0.07, 0.38]). A series of single-moderator analyses tested for the following conditions: participant age and sex; game type ([mini-]dictator game, prisoner's dilemma, public goods dilemma, trust game, ultimatum game); outcome interdependence; membership manipulation (between- vs. within-subjects); group type (natural vs. experimental); reward type (monetary vs. non-monetary); and country of the participant. Parochial cooperation did not vary with participants' age. Parochialism was larger in non-interdependent (dictator-type) compared to interdependent (bargaining and social dilemma) games. There were no moderating effects of group type, membership manipulation or reward type. To provide more data on how parochialism develops, primary studies should report age ranges more precisely and use more restricted age groups.