Mini managers: Children strategically divide cognitive labor among collaborators, but with a self‐serving bias. Issue 2 (18th October 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Baer, Carolyn; Odic, Darko
• Is Part Of: Child development. Volume 93:Issue 2(2022)
• Page Start: 437
• Page End: 450
• Publication Date: 2021-10-18
• Subjects: Child development -- Periodicals; Child psychology -- Periodicals; Child Development -- Periodicals; Child Development; Pediatrics -- Periodicals; Pedicatrics; 305.231
• DOI: 10.1111/cdev.13692
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0009-3920

Abstract

Abstract: Strategic collaboration according to the law of comparative advantage involves dividing tasks based on the relative capabilities of group members. Three experiments ( N = 405, primarily White and Asian, 45% female, collected 2016–2019 in Canada) examined how this strategy develops in children when dividing cognitive labor. Children divided questions about numbers between two partners. By 7 years, children allocated difficult questions to the skilled partner (Experiment 1, d = 1.42; Experiment 2, d = 0.87). However, younger children demonstrated a self‐serving bias, choosing the easiest questions for themselves. Only when engaging in a third‐party collaborative task did 5‐year‐olds assign harder questions to the more skilled individual (Experiment 3, d = 0.55). These findings demonstrate early understanding of strategic collaboration subject to a self‐serving bias.