Browsing by Author "Tomasello, M"
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Item Open Access Children's developing understanding of legitimate reasons for allocating resources unequally(Cognitive Development, 2016-01-01) Schmidt, MFH; Svetlova, M; Johe, J; Tomasello, M© 2015 Elsevier Inc.Recent research on distributive justice suggests that young children prefer equal distributions. But sometimes unequal distributions are justified, such as when some individuals deserve more than others based on merit, need, or agreed-upon rules. When and how do children start incorporating such factors in their distributive decisions? Three-, 5-, and 8-year-old children (N= 72) had the opportunity to allocate several items to two individuals. One individual was neutral and the other provided a reason why she should be favored. Three of these reasons were legitimate (based on merit, need, or agreed-upon rules) whereas a fourth was idiosyncratic ("I just want more."). We found that with age, children's equality preference diminished and their acceptance of various reasons for privileged treatment increased. It was not until 8 years, however, that they differentiated between legitimate and idiosyncratic reasons for inequality. These findings suggest that children's sense of distributive justice develops from an early equality preference to a more flexible understanding of the basic normative reasons that inequality may, in some cases, be just.Item Open Access Children’s Developing Understanding of the Conventionality of Rules(Journal of Cognition and Development, 2016-12-01) Hardecker, S; Schmidt, MFH; Tomasello, M© 2016 Taylor & FrancisMuch research has investigated how children relate to norms taught to them by adult authorities. Very few studies have investigated norms that arise out of children’s own peer interactions. In 2 studies, we investigated how 5- and 7-year-old children teach, enforce, and understand rules that they either created themselves or were taught by an adult. Children (N = 240) were asked to either invent game rules on their own or were taught these exact same rules by an adult (yoked design). Children of both ages enforced and transmitted the rules in a normative way, regardless of whether they had invented them or were taught the rules by an adult, suggesting that they viewed even their own self-made rules as normatively binding. However, creating the rules led 5-year-old children to understand them as much more changeable as compared with adult-taught rules. Seven-year-olds, in contrast, regarded both kinds of rules as equally changeable, indeed allowing fewer changes to their self-created rules than 5-year-olds. While the process of creating rules seemed to enlighten preschoolers’ understanding of the conventionality of the rules, school-aged children regarded both self-created rules and adult-taught rules in a similar manner, suggesting a deeper understanding of rule normativity as arising from social agreement and commitment.Item Open Access Chimpanzees, bonobos, and children successfully coordinate in conflict situations.(Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2017-06-07) Sánchez-Amaro, A; Duguid, S; Call, J; Tomasello, MSocial animals need to coordinate with others to reap the benefits of group-living even when individuals’ interests are misaligned. We compare how chimpanzees, bonobos and children coordinate their actions with a conspecific in a Snowdrift game, which provides a model for understanding how organisms coordinate and make decisions under conflict. In study 1, we presented pairs of chimpanzees, bonobos and children with an unequal reward distribution. In the critical condition, the preferred reward could only be obtained by waiting for the partner to act, with the risk that if no one acted, both would lose the rewards. Apes and children successfully coordinated to obtain the rewards. Children used a ‘both-partner-pull’ strategy and communicated during the task, while some apes relied on an ‘only-one-partner-pulls’ strategy to solve the task, although there were also signs of strategic behaviour as they waited for their partner to pull when that strategy led to the preferred reward. In study 2, we presented pairs of chimpanzees and bonobos with the same set-up as in study 1 with the addition of a non-social option that provided them with a secure reward. In this situation, apes had to actively decide between the unequal distribution and the alternative. In this set-up, apes maximized their rewards by taking their partners’ potential actions into account. In conclusion, children and apes showed clear instances of strategic decision-making to maximize their own rewards while maintaining successful coordination.Item Open Access Do young children preferentially trust gossip or firsthand observation in choosing a collaborative partner?(Social Development, 2016-10) Haux, L; Engelmann, JM; Herrmann, E; Tomasello, MItem Open Access Great Apes and Human Development: A Personal History(Child Development Perspectives, 2018-01-01) Tomasello, M© 2018 The Society for Research in Child Development, Inc. In this article, I recount my history of research with great apes. From the beginning, the idea was to compare apes to human children, with an eye to discovering facts relevant to describing and explaining processes of human development. The research went through three more or less distinct stages, focusing on communication and social learning, social cognition and theory of mind, and cooperation and shared intentionality. I conclude by identifying problems and prospects for comparative research in developmental psychology.Item Open Access One for you, one for me: Humans' unique turn-taking skills(Psychological Science) Melis, A; Grocke, P; Kalbitz, J; Tomasello, MItem Open Access Origins of Human Cooperation and Morality(Annual Review of Psychology, 2013-01-03) Tomasello, M; Vaish, AItem Open Access Restorative justice in young children(Current Biology, 2015) Tomasello, M; Riedl,, K; Jensen,, K; Call,, JItem Open Access The domestication hypothesis for dogs' skills with human communication: a response to Udell et al. (2008) and Wynne et al. (2008)(Animal Behaviour, 2010-02-01) Hare, B; Rosati, AG; Kaminski, J; Braeuer, J; Call, J; Tomasello, MItem Open Access The goggles experiment: can chimpanzees use self-experience to infer what a competitor can see?(Animal Behaviour, 2015-07) Karg, K; Schmelz, M; Call, J; Tomasello, MItem Open Access The ontogeny of cultural learning(Current Opinion in Psychology, 2016-04) Tomasello, MItem Open Access The ultra-social animal(European Journal of Social Psychology, 2014-04) Tomasello, MItem Open Access Young children (sometimes) do the right thing even when their peers do not(Cognitive Development, 2016-07) Engelmann, JM; Herrmann, E; Rapp, DJ; Tomasello, M