Do Children Cooperate Conditionally? Adapting the Strategy Method for First-Graders

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Do Children Cooperate Conditionally? Adapting the Strategy Method for First-Graders. / Hermes, Hennig; Hett, Florian; Mechtel, Mario et al.
In: Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Vol. 179, 11.2020, p. 638-652.

Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesResearchpeer-review

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Hermes H, Hett F, Mechtel M, Schmidt F, Schunk D, Wagner V. Do Children Cooperate Conditionally? Adapting the Strategy Method for First-Graders. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization. 2020 Nov;179:638-652. Epub 2019 Feb 8. doi: 10.1016/j.jebo.2018.12.032

Bibtex

@article{09703ae296ef4155ae58126a6c6468de,
title = "Do Children Cooperate Conditionally?: Adapting the Strategy Method for First-Graders",
abstract = "We develop a public goods game (PGG) to measure cooperation and conditional cooperation in young children. Our design addresses several obstacles in adapting simultaneous and sequential PGGs to children who are not yet able to read or write, do not possess advanced abilities to calculate payoffs, and only have a very limited attention span. It features the combination of haptic offline explanation, fully standardized audiovisual instructions, computerized choices based on touchscreens, and a suitable incentive scheme. Applying our experimental protocol to 129 German first-graders, we find that already 6-year-olds cooperate conditionally and that the relative frequency of different cooperation types matches the findings for adult subjects. We also find that neither survey items from teachers nor from parents predict unconditional or conditional cooperation behavior; this underlines the value of incentivized experimental protocols for measuring cooperation in children.",
keywords = "Economics, Conditional cooperation, Strategy method, Public goods game, Revealed preferences, Measurement, Children, Ingroup bias, Group Identity",
author = "Hennig Hermes and Florian Hett and Mario Mechtel and Felix Schmidt and Daniel Schunk and Valetin Wagner",
year = "2020",
month = nov,
doi = "10.1016/j.jebo.2018.12.032",
language = "English",
volume = "179",
pages = "638--652",
journal = "Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization",
issn = "0167-2681",
publisher = "Elsevier B.V.",

}

RIS

TY - JOUR

T1 - Do Children Cooperate Conditionally?

T2 - Adapting the Strategy Method for First-Graders

AU - Hermes, Hennig

AU - Hett, Florian

AU - Mechtel, Mario

AU - Schmidt, Felix

AU - Schunk, Daniel

AU - Wagner, Valetin

PY - 2020/11

Y1 - 2020/11

N2 - We develop a public goods game (PGG) to measure cooperation and conditional cooperation in young children. Our design addresses several obstacles in adapting simultaneous and sequential PGGs to children who are not yet able to read or write, do not possess advanced abilities to calculate payoffs, and only have a very limited attention span. It features the combination of haptic offline explanation, fully standardized audiovisual instructions, computerized choices based on touchscreens, and a suitable incentive scheme. Applying our experimental protocol to 129 German first-graders, we find that already 6-year-olds cooperate conditionally and that the relative frequency of different cooperation types matches the findings for adult subjects. We also find that neither survey items from teachers nor from parents predict unconditional or conditional cooperation behavior; this underlines the value of incentivized experimental protocols for measuring cooperation in children.

AB - We develop a public goods game (PGG) to measure cooperation and conditional cooperation in young children. Our design addresses several obstacles in adapting simultaneous and sequential PGGs to children who are not yet able to read or write, do not possess advanced abilities to calculate payoffs, and only have a very limited attention span. It features the combination of haptic offline explanation, fully standardized audiovisual instructions, computerized choices based on touchscreens, and a suitable incentive scheme. Applying our experimental protocol to 129 German first-graders, we find that already 6-year-olds cooperate conditionally and that the relative frequency of different cooperation types matches the findings for adult subjects. We also find that neither survey items from teachers nor from parents predict unconditional or conditional cooperation behavior; this underlines the value of incentivized experimental protocols for measuring cooperation in children.

KW - Economics

KW - Conditional cooperation

KW - Strategy method

KW - Public goods game

KW - Revealed preferences

KW - Measurement

KW - Children

KW - Ingroup bias

KW - Group Identity

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85061080709&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.jebo.2018.12.032

DO - 10.1016/j.jebo.2018.12.032

M3 - Journal articles

VL - 179

SP - 638

EP - 652

JO - Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization

JF - Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization

SN - 0167-2681

ER -