Children coordinate in a recurrent social dilemma by taking turns and along dominance asymmetries
Abstract
© 2016 American Psychological Association.Humans constantly have to coordinate their
decisions with others even when their interests are conflicting (e.g., when 2 drivers
have to decide who yields at an intersection). So far, however, little is known about
the development of these abilities. Here, we present dyads of 5-year-olds (N = 40)
with a repeated chicken game using a novel methodology: Two children each steered
an automated toy train carrying a reward. The trains simultaneously moved toward each
other so that in order to avoid a crash-which left both children empty-handed-1 train
had to swerve. By swerving, however, the trains lost a portion of the rewards so that
it was in each child's interest to go straight. Children coordinated their decisions
successfully over multiple rounds, and they mostly did so by taking turns at swerving.
In dyads in which turn-taking was rare, dominant children obtained significantly higher
payoffs than their partners. Moreover, the coordination process was more efficient
in turn-taking dyads as indicated by a significant reduction in conflicts and verbal
protest. These findings indicate that already by the late preschool years children
can independently coordinate decisions with peers in recurrent conflicts of interest.
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Journal articlePermalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/13886Published Version (Please cite this version)
10.1037/dev0000236Publication Info
Grueneisen, Sebastian; & Tomasello, Michael (2017). Children coordinate in a recurrent social dilemma by taking turns and along dominance
asymmetries. Developmental Psychology, 53(2). pp. 265-273. 10.1037/dev0000236. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/13886.This is constructed from limited available data and may be imprecise. To cite this
article, please review & use the official citation provided by the journal.
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Show full item recordScholars@Duke
Michael Tomasello
James F. Bonk Distinguished Professor
Major research interests in processes of social cognition, social learning, cooperation,
and communication from developmental, comparative, and cultural perspectives. Current
theoretical focus on processes of shared intentionality. Empirical research mainly
with human children from 1 to 4 years of age and great apes.

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