Popular children more likely to share, study finds
But that’s only when others are watching
Well-liked people behaving one way in public and another in private is a phenomenon that begins as early as age six, a new study has found.
In a paper titled Beware of Popular Kids Bearing Gifts, researchers investigate youngsters’ giving patterns and find that popular children are only more magnanimous than their less-popular peers when image is on the line. Away from the watchful eyes of their classmates, sharing takes a back seat to self-interest.
“What you see isn’t exactly what you get,” said study co-author Jingnan Chen, a research assistant at George Mason University in Virginia. “Popular kids may be nice and generous in public, but you never know what goes on behind the veil. Are they really that generous? It appears not.”
The study, which also included researchers from Lund University and the University of Copenhagen, draws on field work with 231 children, aged six to 12, who participated in a game that gauged generosity. In it, the youths had to choose how many “silly bands” — a favoured item among this demographic at the time of the study — they were willing to share with another anonymous child.
In the “public” condition, the children were told their decisions would be revealed to the class at the end of the game; in the “private” condition, they were told their decisions would remain secret. A seating chart scenario, meanwhile, assessed individual youths’ popularity by measuring the share of peers who wanted to sit near them.
“As with popular children, it seems, it’s all about keeping up appearances.”
RESEARCHER JINGNAN CHEN
Researchers found the less-popular children behaved similarly regardless of an audience, sharing a similar number of bands in both public and private. By contrast, the cool kids — those ranked in the top quarter as seatmates — were only more generous when they knew classmates would be informed of their choices.
Age also had an effect: Older children in public displayed greater generosity than older children in private (and more than younger children in public or private). And popular older children shared more than lesspopular older children in public, but behaved similarly to the latter group when their actions were private.
“The popular kids are more prosocial, but they’re only pro-social and generous in public; in private, they’re no different than the kids who are unpopular,” said Chen, who adds that the implications of this phenomenon could play out with philanthropy later in life. “Ideally, charities want to have a campaign that targets the popular population, and have them making their charitable decisions in public.”
The study was inspired by researchers’ observation that higherranking chimpanzees are demonstrably generous in terms of public grooming and sharing food — a finding Chen initially found counterintuitive, “because you obviously don’t get the alpha position by being nice.” As with popular children, it seems, it’s all about keeping up appearances.