The influence of birth order and sibling age gap on children’s sharing decision

ABSTRACT

The potential influences on children's sharing decision caused by birth order and sibling age gap were examined. A third-party resource allocation task was adopted to examine five- to six-year-old children's sharing decision when they expected a protagonist to allocate resources between two recipients with different social relationships. Children with sibling age gap less than three years tended to allocate resources with a closer recipient more often than those with sibling age gap more than three years. When siblings were more than three years apart in age, children allocated resources between a sibling and a friend, first-born children were more likely to choose a sibling than second-born children. However, when siblings' age gap was within three years, second-born children, in turn, were more willing to share with a sibling than first-born children. These results were attributed to the sibling relationships and the development level of the Theory of Mind.

KEYWORDS:

• Birth order
• sibling age gap
• sharing decision
• sibling relationship
• theory of mind

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Key Cultivation Project in the College of Education of Hangzhou Normal University under grant number 20JYXK013; and Foundation Project of China Youth and Children Research Association under grant number 2022B20.

Notes on contributors

Erping Xiao

Erping Xiao is an associate professor in Jing Hengyi School of Education at Hangzhou Normal University. Her research is focused on children's cognition, developmental psychology and cross–cultural psychology. Her professional background is psychology.

Hao Qin

Hao Qin is a graduate student in Jing Hengyi School of Education at Hangzhou Normal University.

Xinyi Zhu

Xinyi Zhu is a graduate student in Jing Hengyi School of Education at Hangzhou Normal University.

Jing Jin

Jing Jin is a lecturer in Foreign Languages Teaching Center at Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Her research is focused on language development and cultural studies.