Reciprocity and Generosity: Some Determinants of Sharing in Children

The present experiment was primarily designed to examine the alternative hypotheses of a social responsibility norm or a reciprocity norm as a basic determinant of altruistic behavior. Children were given the opportunity to share tokens with charity or a model after having previously been either the recipient or an observer of charitable behavior or exposed to no such altruism. The effect of praising the model's generosity was also studied. Although children who had been the recipients of generosity shared no more than those who had merely observed sharing, those receiving chips from the model tended to share with her. Those observing her share with charity tended to donate to charity, and those observing no sharing tended not to share. Vicarious reinforcement, however, was not a significant contributory factor. The pattern of results, while disconfirming that reciprocity is a necessary determinant of generosity, demonstrates that observation of a model's altruism can strongly influence the occurrence, amount, and direction of altruistic behavior.