Mini managers: Children strategically divide cognitive labor among collaborators, but with a self‐serving bias.
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| Title: | Mini managers: Children strategically divide cognitive labor among collaborators, but with a self‐serving bias. |
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| Authors: | Baer, Carolyn (AUTHOR), Odic, Darko (AUTHOR) |
| Source: | Child Development. Mar2022, Vol. 93 Issue 2, p437-450. 14p. 1 Diagram, 3 Charts, 3 Graphs. |
| Subjects: | Cooperativeness in children, Self-serving bias (Psychology), Group games, Cognitive ability, Games & psychology, School children |
| Abstract: | Strategic collaboration according to the law of comparative advantage involves dividing tasks based on the relative capabilities of group members. Three experiments (N = 405, primarily White and Asian, 45% female, collected 2016–2019 in Canada) examined how this strategy develops in children when dividing cognitive labor. Children divided questions about numbers between two partners. By 7 years, children allocated difficult questions to the skilled partner (Experiment 1, d = 1.42; Experiment 2, d = 0.87). However, younger children demonstrated a self‐serving bias, choosing the easiest questions for themselves. Only when engaging in a third‐party collaborative task did 5‐year‐olds assign harder questions to the more skilled individual (Experiment 3, d = 0.55). These findings demonstrate early understanding of strategic collaboration subject to a self‐serving bias. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
| Copyright of Child Development is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.) | |
| Database: | Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection |
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| Abstract: | Strategic collaboration according to the law of comparative advantage involves dividing tasks based on the relative capabilities of group members. Three experiments (N = 405, primarily White and Asian, 45% female, collected 2016–2019 in Canada) examined how this strategy develops in children when dividing cognitive labor. Children divided questions about numbers between two partners. By 7 years, children allocated difficult questions to the skilled partner (Experiment 1, d = 1.42; Experiment 2, d = 0.87). However, younger children demonstrated a self‐serving bias, choosing the easiest questions for themselves. Only when engaging in a third‐party collaborative task did 5‐year‐olds assign harder questions to the more skilled individual (Experiment 3, d = 0.55). These findings demonstrate early understanding of strategic collaboration subject to a self‐serving bias. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
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| ISSN: | 00093920 |
| DOI: | 10.1111/cdev.13692 |
