Abstract: Resource allocation plays a crucial role in children’ socialization process, reflects the level of children's social development. Resources encompass both quantity and value attributes, and children’ development of cognitive and fair allocation based on resource value typically lags behind the cognitive and allocation based on resource quantity, represents a more advanced cognitive and behavioral approach. Reciprocity is one of the fundamental norms of social interaction, and can be divided into direct reciprocity and indirect reciprocity. Indirect reciprocity acts as a significant mechanism in fostering the development of prosocial behavior in children. Upstream indirect reciprocity pertains to individuals being more inclined to assist a third party due to past assistance received from others, while downstream indirect reciprocity refers to individuals having a higher likelihood of receiving help from a third party as a result of previously offering help to others. Previous research primarily focused on indirect reciprocity in quantity-based resource allocation, with limited exploration in value-based resource allocation. Examining children’s performance of indirect reciprocity in value-based resource allocation is instrumental in understanding their development of moral cognition and prosocial behavior within intricate social interaction settings, thereby plays a pivotal role in enhancing children’s prosocial behavior and socialization. Therefore, this study focused on the allocation behavior and indirect reciprocity based resource value, two experiments were designed to investigate the behavior and the indirect reciprocity of value-based resource allocation in 5- to 6-year-old children.
Experiment 1 aimed to examine the behavior characteristics of children's value-based resource allocation with controlling quantity of resources, and 60 children aged 5- to 6-year-old were recruited for experiment 1. On the first step, children were asked to choose the favorite(assigned with high-value) and least favorite (assigned with low-value ) sticker types, and then pick out four favorite stickers (high-quality resources) and four least favorite stickers (low-quality resources) from the chosen sticker types. On the second step, participants were tasked with allocating any four of the eight stickers to a virtual child. Encode children's allocation behavior into fairness, selfish, and altruistic patterns based on the proportion of allocated high and low value stickers. The results show that the proportion of children adopting selfish pattern is significantly higher than that of fairness and altruism.
Experiment 2 aimed to examine the indirect reciprocity of children's value-based resource allocation, and 180 children aged 5- to 6-year-old were recruited for the experiment. Initially, participants were asked to selecting four high- and four low-value stickers as owned resources. Subsequently, present the virtual participants' resource allocation patterns under two social interaction settings, and then asked participants to allocate resources. In the setting of upstream indirect reciprocity, participants were first allocated four of eight stickers(four high-value and four low-value) by virtual child A, according to fair, or selfish, or altruistic schemes, followed by instructions to assign four of eight stickers they owned(four high-value and four low-value) to virtual child C. In the downstream indirect reciprocity setting, participants observed virtual child A allocating four of eight stickers (four high-value and four low-value) fairly, or selfishly, or altruistically to virtual child B, then were tasked with allocating four of eight stickers to virtual child A. Chi-square and stratified chi-square tests were used to compare the proportion differences of children adopting fair, selfish, and altruistic patterns under different conditions. Results show that regardless of their role as recipients or observers, 5- to 6-year-old children could perceive others’ allocation patterns based on resource value, and exhibited upstream and downstream indirect reciprocity in subsequent resource allocation.
In summary, the 5- to 6-year-old children can perceive the value of resources clearly, and demonstrate them in value-based resource allocation. Without controlling any social context, 5- to 6-year-old children exhibit a tendency of selfish in value-based resource allocation. With considering the effects of social interaction contexts and allocation patterns of others, when being recipients of initial resources allocation, 5- to 6-year-old children exhibit a upstream indirect reciprocity in subsequent value-based resources allocation, and exhibit a downstream indirect reciprocity when being bystanders.

Key words: preschooler, resource value, allocation behavior, upstream indirect reciprocity, downstream indirect reciprocity

摘要： 上行间接互惠指个体因获得过他人的帮助更可能去帮助第三方,下行间接互惠指个体因曾给予他人帮助有更高的概率得到第三方的帮助。为探讨5~6岁幼儿基于资源价值分配行为的特点及间接互惠表现,实验1以60名5~6岁幼儿为被试,考察幼儿基于资源价值分配行为的特点,结果发现5~6岁幼儿在基于资源价值的分配中主要选择利己分配模式。实验2以180名5~6岁幼儿为被试,分别在上行间接互惠和下行间接互惠情境中考察他人分配模式对幼儿基于资源价值分配的影响,结果发现,不管是作为资源接受者还是旁观者,5~6岁幼儿均能感知他人基于资源价值的分配模式,在资源分配中表现出上行间接互惠行为和下行间接互惠行为。

关键词: 幼儿, 资源价值, 分配行为, 上行间接互惠, 下行间接互惠