title: Mine or yours? Development of sharing in toddlers in relation to ownership understanding.
abstract: To examine early developments in other-oriented resource sharing, fifty-one 18- and 24-month-old children were administered 6 tasks with toys or food that could be shared with an adult playmate who had none. On each task the playmate communicated her desire for the items in a series of progressively more explicit cues. Twenty-four-month-olds shared frequently and spontaneously. Eighteen-month-olds shared when given multiple opportunities and when the partner provided enough communicative support. Younger children engaged in self-focused and hypothesis-testing behavior in lieu of sharing more often than did older children. Ownership understanding, separately assessed, was positively associated with sharing and negatively associated with non-sharing behavior, independent of age and language ability.
authors.affiliation: University of Pittsburgh, PA, USA. brownell@pitt.edu
authors.forename: Celia A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Brownell
authors.forename: Stephanie S
authors.initials: SS
authors.lastname: Iesue
authors.forename: Sara R
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Nichols
authors.forename: Margarita
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Svetlova
mesh_terms: D002652:Child Behavior; D002675:Child, Preschool; D032882:Comprehension; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D005502:Food; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D010067:Ownership; D010988:Play and Playthings; D012919:Social Behavior