Children passively allow other’s rule violations in cooperative situations

Abstract

Recent studies in developmental psychology have revealed the developmental origins of cooperation. Although such studies regard cooperation as a pro-social behavior, studies on adults have found a negative aspect: cooperation sometimes promotes unethical behavior. Adults also exhibit altruistic cheating, even though their cheating might not actually benefit them. However, the development of negative aspects of cooperation remains unclear. Our study examined whether 7-year-old children engage in negative aspects of cooperation from two aspects using a peeking paradigm. Specifically, Experiment 1 examined children’s negative aspects of cooperation from the perspective of collaboration and Experiment 2 examined altruistic behavior. Results of Experiment 1 revealed that children kept the cheating of a collaborative partner secret even though they did not actively cheat themselves. In Experiment 2, children also kept the partner’s cheating secret even when violations did not provide any reward to themselves, if the predefined reward was high. In contrast, children did not keep the cheating secret if the predefined reward was low. Overall, our findings suggest that even 7-year-olds tend to act as if cooperating is more important than following rules that are compatible and exhibit negative aspects of cooperation.