The Influence Of Moral Stories On Children’s Sharing Behavior

Sharing refers to the behavior of sharing resources with others to benefit others out of consideration of fairness,equality or others’ needs,which is a model of children’s altruistic intention.Sharing can promote the development of children’s social skills such as peer relationship and speech ability.It is an important part of human sociality.Although sharing behaviors begin to appear in infants and toddlers,sharing is still not easy for children.The sharing behaviors of young children show self-interested tendency and tend to reserve more resources for themselves.As a means of entertainment and education,stories have been playing an important role in human society.According to the completeness of the story content,this study divides moral stories into model moral stories and moral dilemma stories.Some studies have investigated the influence of different types of model moral stories on prosocial behavior of children,but there is no clear distinction between reinforcement types.In addition,can moral dilemma stories promote children’s sharing behavior,and which one is more conducive to children’s sharing behavior,model moral story or moral dilemma story? These issues are not yet known.Two experiments were conducted to investigate the influence of moral stories on children’s sharing behavior.Experiment 1 employed a 2(reinforcement valence:positive reinforcement vs.negative reinforcement)*2(reinforcement source: internal reinforcement vs.external reinforcement)between-subject design.Children’s sharing was measured with the children’s version of Dictator Game.The results showed that 6-year-olds shared significantly more than 4-year-olds.There was no significant difference in the amount of sharing among 4-year-olds.For 6-year-olds,stories with internal negative reinforcement,in which the model felt guilty for not sharing,had the strongest effect on the 6-year-olds sharing.Experiment 2 employed the story type(model moral story with internal negative reinforcement,moral dilemma story,neutral story)as between-subject variable.6-yearolds sharing was measured with the children’s version of Dictator Game.The results showed that the moral dilemma stories had limited effect on sharing behaviors,and the model moral stories with internal negative reinforcement were more conducive to children’s sharing behavior.In conclusion,based on previous studies,this study further investigates the influence of moral stories on children’s sharing.The results of the study indicate that the role model’s guilt demonstration is of great significance to children aged 6.