TY - JOUR

T1 - Three-year-olds' understanding of the consequences of joint commitments

AU - Graefenhain, Maria

AU - Carpenter, Malinda

AU - Tomasello, Michael

N1 - No external funding has supported the current work.

PY - 2013/9/4

Y1 - 2013/9/4

N2 - Here we investigate the extent of children's understanding of the joint commitments inherent in joint activities. Three-year-old children either made a joint commitment to assemble a puzzle with a puppet partner, or else the child and puppet each assembled their own puzzle. Afterwards, children who had made the joint commitment were more likely to stop and wait for their partner on their way to fetch something, more likely to spontaneously help their partner when needed, and more likely to take over their partner's role when necessary. There was no clear difference in children's tendency to tattle on their partner's cheating behavior or their tendency to distribute rewards equally at the end. It thus appears that by 3 years of age making a joint commitment to act together with others is beginning to engender in children a "we"-intentionality which holds across at least most of the process of the joint activity until the shared goal is achieved, and which withstands at least some of the perturbations to the joint activity children experience.

AB - Here we investigate the extent of children's understanding of the joint commitments inherent in joint activities. Three-year-old children either made a joint commitment to assemble a puzzle with a puppet partner, or else the child and puppet each assembled their own puzzle. Afterwards, children who had made the joint commitment were more likely to stop and wait for their partner on their way to fetch something, more likely to spontaneously help their partner when needed, and more likely to take over their partner's role when necessary. There was no clear difference in children's tendency to tattle on their partner's cheating behavior or their tendency to distribute rewards equally at the end. It thus appears that by 3 years of age making a joint commitment to act together with others is beginning to engender in children a "we"-intentionality which holds across at least most of the process of the joint activity until the shared goal is achieved, and which withstands at least some of the perturbations to the joint activity children experience.

KW - YOUNG-CHILDREN

KW - INDIVIDUAL-DIFFERENCES

KW - SHARED INTENTION

KW - COOPERATION

KW - GOALS

KW - GAMES

KW - LIES

KW - CHIMPANZEES

KW - FAIRNESS

KW - SIBLINGS

U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0073039

DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0073039

M3 - Article

VL - 8

JO - PLoS One

JF - PLoS One

SN - 1932-6203

IS - 9

M1 - e73039

ER -