Mine!

[sees_all1]

From http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/74983/title/Kids_own_up_to_ownership

WASHINGTON Young children are possessed by possessions. Preschoolers argue about what belongs to whom with annoying regularity, a habit that might suggest limited appreciation of what it means to own something.

 

But its actually just the opposite, psychologist Ori Friedman of the University of Waterloo in Canada reported on May 28 at the Association for Psychological Science annual meeting. At ages 4 and 5, youngsters value a persons ownership rights say, to a crayon far more strongly than adults do, Friedman and psychology graduate student Karen Neary found.

 

Rather than being learned from parents, a concept of property rights may automatically grow out of 2- to 3-year-olds ideas about bodily rights, such as assuming that another person cant touch or control ones body for no reason, Friedman proposed.

 

Parents and adults may teach kids when its appropriate to disregard personal ownership, he said. One such instance would involve a mothers advice on when to lend a toy to another child who wants to borrow that item.

 

Friedmans team presented a simple quandary to 40 preschoolers, ages 4 and 5, and to 44 adults. Participants saw an image of a cartoon boy holding a crayon who appeared above the word user and a cartoon girl who appeared above the word owner. After hearing from an experimenter that the girl wanted her crayon back, volunteers were asked to rule on which cartoon child should get the prized object.

 

About 75 percent of 4- and 5-year-olds decided in favor of the owner, versus about 20 percent of adults.

 

A second experiment consisted of more than 100 kids, ages 3 to 7, and 30 adults. In this case, participants saw the same cartoon boy and girl but were told that the crayon belonged to the school that the two imaginary children attended.

 

Nearly everyone, regardless of age, said that the user should keep the crayon for as long as needed in this situation. In other words, kids distinguished between people using an owned or a nonowned object.

 

In a final experiment that presented two cartoon adults, one using a cell phone that the other owned, most 4-year-olds but only a minority of adults declared that the device should be returned to its owner even before the borrower had a chance to use it. Children showed some flexibility in allowing borrowers to keep the phone say, if it was needed for an emergency but adults adjusted their opinions more readily to such circumstances.

 

Its hard to know how children reasoned about experimental ownership scenarios, remarked psychologist Dan Ariely of Duke University. Perhaps preschoolers thought that, relative to the boy using a crayon, the girl who owned that crayon liked it more or got more pleasure from using it, Ariely suggested.

 

That possibility hasnt been studied. Whats clear is that learning apparently plays little role in early thinking about possessions, Friedman asserted.

 

A concept of ownership rights may be a product of the way we naturally think early in life, he said.

 

 

Discuss, I'll post my opinion later.

[K4ylan]

I'd agree with the children on that one. It's her crayon, she should be able to take it back whenever. As you grow older, you start to be a bit more lenient when it comes to sharing, but I can understand a 4-5 year old being attached to their possessions, considering what little they really own.

[Alg]

I'd agree with the children on that one. It's her crayon, she should be able to take it back whenever. As you grow older, you start to be a bit more lenient when it comes to sharing, but I can understand a 4-5 year old being attached to their possessions, considering what little they really own.

I think I've read something about that period being about when a child gets a sense of identity. It probably has more to do with that (Ex: I am an individual! I can own things! This crayon is a part of my identity!)

[Poppet]

So 4 and 5 years olds are fine with sharing between each other if, a third party supplies the things that are being shared.

 

 

 

Why does it feel like all the results for the 4 and 5 year olds usually change inversely later on in their life?

[sees_all1]

I suppose it's "later;" unfortunately this hasn't generated the discussion I was hoping for, maybe I can nudge it a bit.

 

First off, I don't think this is ground breaking. Anyone who has a sibling that is two-four years old knows that when they first learn the word "mine," you'll hear it constantly. Everything that interests them becomes "mine," and you'll be damned if you take it away from "me".

Typically as adults we spend the next 3-10 years teaching children how to play nice, how to share. That's it though, we're conditioned to share. We're not conditioned to learn property rights, we're born with that knowledge.

 

Further extrapolate this to political systems. As humans, we're capitalists by nature. That is to put it simply, "mine." My number one priority is looking out for me, and whatever makes me happy (we're selfish).

The concept of sharing is learned, it isn't natural. Socialism (sharing) requires a much more strict set of rules, and requires everyone to abide by the rules to work. Just as when we were little, there might be a jerk that would hog all the resources (classroom's toys). Without a fair government (a teacher) to force them to play fair, as law abiding individuals there would be nothing we could do about it.

 

"The trouble with socialism is socialism. The trouble with capitalism is capitalists."

-Willi Schlamm

[aspeeder]

First off, I don't think this is ground breaking. Anyone who has a sibling that is two-four years old knows that when they first learn the word "mine," you'll hear it constantly. Everything that interests them becomes "mine," and you'll be damned if you take it away from "me".

Typically as adults we spend the next 3-10 years teaching children how to play nice, how to share. That's it though, we're conditioned to share. We're not conditioned to learn property rights, we're born with that knowledge.

 

Further extrapolate this to political systems. As humans, we're capitalists by nature. That is to put it simply, "mine." My number one priority is looking out for me, and whatever makes me happy (we're selfish).

The concept of sharing is learned, it isn't natural. Socialism (sharing) requires a much more strict set of rules, and requires everyone to abide by the rules to work. Just as when we were little, there might be a jerk that would hog all the resources (classroom's toys). Without a fair government (a teacher) to force them to play fair, as law abiding individuals there would be nothing we could do about it.

 

"The trouble with socialism is socialism. The trouble with capitalism is capitalists."

-Willi Schlamm

Me again :rolleyes:

As babies we also know how to lie to get what we want, even before we are able to speak. That means that we have to condition children to value the truth in order to value the truth. Does that mean that we should make a society based on lying and devalue the truth since it must be learned? Oh, and everything is natural in that there is nothing that exists outside of nature, since nature consists of everything that obeys the natural laws which govern our reality; you're just using the phrase "isn't natural" as a scary substitute for learned. Just because some attribute is our born instinct doesn't make it the best thing to base a society on. Also towards the end you seem to suggest that we should just let the jerk be and not let the other kids have a chance at the toys (That would be socialism).

 

I'd be surprised if you weren't be directly sponsored by Friedman himself.

[sees_all1]

As babies we also know how to lie to get what we want, even before we are able to speak. That means that we have to condition children to value the truth in order to value the truth.

I have a 4 year old brother. Speaking from direct experience, kids don't know what the "truth" is and can't distinguish between truths and lies. The opposite of knowing truth and lies does not mean automatically lies, it means deferring to something else (in this case, selfishness or "mine").

 

Does that mean that we should make a society based on lying and devalue the truth since it must be learned? Oh, and everything is natural in that there is nothing that exists outside of nature, since nature consists of everything that obeys the natural laws which govern our reality; you're just using the phrase "isn't natural" as a scary substitute for learned. Just because some attribute is our born instinct doesn't make it the best thing to base a society on.

I'm using the phrase "isn't natural" to mean "artificial." A society which requires everyone to play along to get along won't work unless everyone plays along. As the study shows, humans are capitalists by nature; and as we know, socialism doesn't work unless everyone behaves selflessly.

Capitalism may not be perfect, but it certainly doesn't go against our nature.

 

Also towards the end you seem to suggest that we should just let the jerk be and not let the other kids have a chance at the toys (That would be socialism).

In the case of communal toys, there isn't much you can do (especially in the case of favoritism, like the jerk is the teacher's pet). In the case of capitalism, if a jerk tried to hog your toy you'd have the option of defending it.

 

 

 

EDIT:

Sees all your comment reminds me of my "Would we be better off in a stateless society" thread.

Your youtube voice should read the Federalist Papers.

[aspeeder]

I have a 4 year old brother. Speaking from direct experience, kids don't know what the "truth" is and can't distinguish between truths and lies. The opposite of knowing truth and lies does not mean automatically lies, it means deferring to something else (in this case, selfishness or "mine").

 

But they do lie and deceive. My point is that kids do whatever they can to get the things that they want, that is their "natural state." And I think you and I would both agree that this state, unchanged, is not what should be an ideal base for society. Lying is important, strange as that may seem, but learned and conditioned behaviors aren't evil by default.

 

I'm using the phrase "isn't natural" to mean "artificial." A society which requires everyone to play along to get along won't work unless everyone plays along. As the study shows, humans are capitalists by nature; and as we know, socialism doesn't work unless everyone behaves selflessly.

Capitalism may not be perfect, but it certainly doesn't go against our nature.

Sorry about nitpicking about the not natural thing, I just try to discourage its use since it's a silly turn of phrase (And that the idea of something being "unnatural" as inherently bad is often used to defend homophobia, but I digress). Kids are not the same, psychologically, as adults. Our nature as humans and the ways our brains works changes dramatically as we get older and learn concepts like empathy that small children often lack; without being able to empathize and know what others are feeling it's difficult for us to share. Besides one of the only ways for society to evolve is to work against our nature using our primary weapon as humans: our consciousness. Here'd be an example about morality not only being natural, but something beneficial to work against.

 

In the case of communal toys, there isn't much you can do (especially in the case of favoritism, like the jerk is the teacher's pet). In the case of capitalism, if a jerk tried to hog your toy you'd have the option of defending it.

Actually no, in the case of capitalism the jerk not only has the toys but also buys off the teacher to defend his ownership of them, and loans them to the stronger kids to make sure that you don't get any of them.