Experimental Analysis of Behavior Commons^™

Children Cooperate More With In-Group Members Than With Out-Group Members In An Iterated Face-To-Face Prisoner's Dilemma Game, Laurent Prétôt, Quinlan Taylor, Katherine Mcauliffe

Faculty Submissions

Adults are more likely to cooperate with in-group members than with out-group members in the context of social dilemmas, situations in which self-interest is in conflict with collective interest. This bias has the potential to profoundly shape human cooperation, and therefore it is important to understand when it emerges in development. Here we asked whether 6- to 9-year-old children (N = 146) preferentially cooperate with in-group members in the context of a well-studied social dilemma, the iterated Prisoner's Dilemma Game. We assigned children to minimal groups and paired them with unfamiliar same-age and same-gender peers. Consistent with our predictions, children …