Do maternal requests influence children's motivation to help and share across different cultures?

What is it about?

We showed 686 children from Germany, the U.S., India, Japan and Ecuador several stories about helping in the household or sharing with another child. In some of these stories, we showed the mother requesting the child to help or share, while the behavior was spontaneous in other stories. Then, we asked children about how the protagonist in the stories might feel, e.g.: Did they feel like they had to help? Did they want to help? And how good did they feel while helping? Our findings show cross-cultural variation in how children react to a request: German children believe that being asked to help or share decreases a protagonist’s motivation. This effect was smaller for U.S., Japanese and Indian children and non-existent for children from Ecuador.

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Photo by Baljinnyam Munkhgerel on Unsplash

Photo by Baljinnyam Munkhgerel on Unsplash

Why is it important?

It is important to study the effect of requests (or of obligations more generally) across cultures, because there are great differences in how they are understood. While Western children may understand a request as diminishing their individual autonomy (especially in German children), children from relational and interdependent cultures (especially in the rural Ecuadorian setting) may see it as an opportunity to contribute to community endeavors and fulfill their social roles.