Satisfying personal preference or being considerate? The protagonist's preference matters in children's evaluation of social mindfulness

Children around ages 5–6 begin valuing social mindfulness, where one leaves a diverse choice for others when selecting an item for themselves. This study investigated how Han Chinese 4‐ to 9‐year‐olds and adults may consider protagonists' preference (unknown, preferring the unique, or identical items) in their evaluations of socially mindful actions. Results show that, with age, children increasingly rate leaving a choice as nicer, both when the protagonist's preference is unknown and for the unique item. However, when the protagonist prefers identical items, neither children nor adults differentially evaluate between leaving a choice or not. Additionally, children become increasingly sensitive to the costs associated with preferences when evaluating mindful actions. They increasingly evaluated high‐cost actions (sacrificing one's preferred item) most favourably, followed by unknown‐cost actions, and low‐cost actions (when preference aligns with leaving a choice) least favourably. These findings highlighted children's growing ability to integrate complex understandings of preference and cost into social evaluations.