Human infants can override possessive tendencies to share valued items with others

Abstract Possessiveness toward objects and sharing are competing tendencies that influence dyadic and group interactions within the primate lineage. A distinctive form of sharing in adult Homo sapiens involves active giving of high-valued possessions to others, without an immediate reciprocal benefi...

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Autores principales:	Rodolfo Cortes Barragan, Andrew N. Meltzoff
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Nature Portfolio 2021
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/d948ae241f12475daad33b83ecae7874
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:d948ae241f12475daad33b83ecae78742021-12-02T14:49:34ZHuman infants can override possessive tendencies to share valued items with others10.1038/s41598-021-88898-x2045-2322https://doaj.org/article/d948ae241f12475daad33b83ecae78742021-05-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-88898-xhttps://doaj.org/toc/2045-2322Abstract Possessiveness toward objects and sharing are competing tendencies that influence dyadic and group interactions within the primate lineage. A distinctive form of sharing in adult Homo sapiens involves active giving of high-valued possessions to others, without an immediate reciprocal benefit. In two Experiments with 19-month-old human infants (N = 96), we found that despite measurable possessive behavior toward their own personal objects (favorite toy, bottle), infants spontaneously gave these items to a begging stranger. Moreover, human infants exhibited this behavior across different types of objects that are relevant to theory (personal objects, sweet food, and common objects)—showing flexible generalizability not evidenced in non-human primates. We combined these data with a previous dataset, yielding a large sample of infants (N = 192), and identified sociocultural factors that may calibrate young infants’ sharing of objects with others. The current findings show a proclivity that is rare or absent in our closest living relatives—the capacity to override possessive behavior toward personally valued objects by sharing those same desired objects with others.Rodolfo Cortes BarraganAndrew N. MeltzoffNature PortfolioarticleMedicineRScienceQENScientific Reports, Vol 11, Iss 1, Pp 1-12 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q Rodolfo Cortes Barragan Andrew N. Meltzoff Human infants can override possessive tendencies to share valued items with others
description	Abstract Possessiveness toward objects and sharing are competing tendencies that influence dyadic and group interactions within the primate lineage. A distinctive form of sharing in adult Homo sapiens involves active giving of high-valued possessions to others, without an immediate reciprocal benefit. In two Experiments with 19-month-old human infants (N = 96), we found that despite measurable possessive behavior toward their own personal objects (favorite toy, bottle), infants spontaneously gave these items to a begging stranger. Moreover, human infants exhibited this behavior across different types of objects that are relevant to theory (personal objects, sweet food, and common objects)—showing flexible generalizability not evidenced in non-human primates. We combined these data with a previous dataset, yielding a large sample of infants (N = 192), and identified sociocultural factors that may calibrate young infants’ sharing of objects with others. The current findings show a proclivity that is rare or absent in our closest living relatives—the capacity to override possessive behavior toward personally valued objects by sharing those same desired objects with others.
format	article
author	Rodolfo Cortes Barragan Andrew N. Meltzoff
author_facet	Rodolfo Cortes Barragan Andrew N. Meltzoff
author_sort	Rodolfo Cortes Barragan
title	Human infants can override possessive tendencies to share valued items with others
title_short	Human infants can override possessive tendencies to share valued items with others
title_full	Human infants can override possessive tendencies to share valued items with others
title_fullStr	Human infants can override possessive tendencies to share valued items with others
title_full_unstemmed	Human infants can override possessive tendencies to share valued items with others
title_sort	human infants can override possessive tendencies to share valued items with others
publisher	Nature Portfolio
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/d948ae241f12475daad33b83ecae7874
work_keys_str_mv	AT rodolfocortesbarragan humaninfantscanoverridepossessivetendenciestosharevalueditemswithothers AT andrewnmeltzoff humaninfantscanoverridepossessivetendenciestosharevalueditemswithothers
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Human infants can override possessive tendencies to share valued items with others

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