CAREER: The Developmental Origins of Human Cooperation

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Humans share valuable resources, assist others who need help, and work together in teams to produce outcomes that lie beyond the capabilities of any one individual. Yet the origins of these cooperative abilities are a puzzle. Other species do not seem to engage in similar behaviors--indeed, humans have been characterized as a hyper-cooperative primate. One way to address why humans show these cooperative patterns is to examine how young children acquire these skills. Are young children initially selfish, and must be taught to become altruistic? Or do humans have a biological predisposition for altruism that even children exhibit? How do children learn to share a common resource and acquire ideas about fairness? With support of a NSF CAREER award, Dr. Felix Warneken (Harvard University) will conduct a comprehensive developmental study of children's cooperative behaviors. This research aims to investigate the fundamental psychological processes that enable young children to cooperate with others. How do children detect that another person is in need? Under what circumstances are they motivated to help? By using experimental studies of young children, this research can address important questions about the interplay of biological predispositions found early in development and the socialization practices that influence the further development of these behaviors. In particular, the research will investigate when social expectations and norms that characterize cooperative behaviors in adults begin to play a role in child development. For example, adults often expect others to reciprocate favors and have norms about what constitutes a fair share of a valuable resource. Therefore, this research is to determine when during development children begin to attend to these norms when they cooperate with others. By integrating insights from evolutionary theory, social psychology, and child development, this project provides a comprehensive study of the skill-set for cooperation that children acquire across development. In addition, this research program will provide a wide range of training opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students in developmental psychology, including active participation of students in research, and a summer internship program with stipends for undergraduate students from underrepresented groups. It will also educate the broader public about psychological research through freely available educational material about the research projects for classroom instructors and the greater public.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.