Children's Developing Sharing Behaviors across Cultures

Abstract

As one of the critical behaviors that distinguish human beings from other species, sharing behaviors, however, remains the least studied subtype of prosocial behaviors. Studies have shown that sharing with others is challenging for young children since it usually comes with a personal cost, which requires certain developmental resources to solve the conflict between self-interest and “social good.” Through a holistic examination of previous literature by visual patterns, I find that though the current field has widely explored how socio-contextual factors affect young children’s sharing behaviors, their results are mixed, and most of their studied population only come from a western background. In this paper, I propose that a cross-cultural perspective could explain variances and provide insights into mechanisms of young children’s developing sharing behaviors. By depicting developmental trajectories, presenting culturally-diverse patterns, and exploring sources of cultural differences, this paper suggests that, rather than the problem of sharing or not sharing, children across cultures differ in how much, under what circumstances, and what intrinsically motivates them to share. A multi-level system of factors that affect sharing, a culture positioning model, and strategies to increase children’s sharing behaviors are also portrayed to support the argument.