Psychological Development and Education ›› 2016, Vol. 32 ›› Issue (4): 402-408.doi: 10.16187/j.cnki.issn1001-4918.2016.04.03

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Effects of In-group Favoritism and Grade on the Altruistic Punishment Behavior of Primary School students

GUO Qingke, XU Ping, WU Rui, HU Shanshan   

  1. School of Psychology, Shandong Normal University, Jinan 250014
  • Online:2016-07-15 Published:2016-07-15

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Abstract: The present research explored the developmental characteristics of primary school students' altruistic punishment behavior and the influence of in-group favoritism. There were three mutually related studies. In study 1, video typed dictator game tasks were used to examine the developmental characteristics of altruistic punishment, and the effects of gender and grade in 450 primary school students (grade 1, 3 and 5). In study 2, we further explored the effects of gender and the group relationship between participants and dictators on altruistic punishment behavior in 168 primary school students from different grades. In study 3, the effects of gender and group relationship between the participants and the recipients in the dictator game was also explored. The results are as follows: (1) School children show willingness to perform altruistic punishment which develops evidently from grade 1 to grade 3, but doesn't increase significantly from grade 3 to grade 5 (a certain degree of decline is even observed). (2) From grade 3, altruistic punishment behavior begins to show significant in-group favoritism. (3) Inconsistent with the prediction that girls are more altruistic than boys, we find no gender difference in altruistic punishment behavior. The results indicate that: (1) Although only 6-year-old, Chinese children develop a willingness to perform the altruistic punishment behavior. (2) Maybe a “3 grade phenomenon” does exist in Chinese children's moral development. (3) Probably the girls prefer Non - punitive ways to maintain fairness in interpersonal relationships.

Key words: dictator game, altruistic punishment, in-group favoritism, three grade phenomenon

CLC Number: 

  • B844

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