Children Cheat to Return a Favor

Abstract

Reciprocity is a cornerstone of human cooperation, motivating individuals to assist each other at a personal cost, resulting in mutual long-term benefits. However, reciprocity can conflict with honesty norms, such as when returning favors to previous benefactors requires individuals to act dishonestly. The resulting moral dilemmas are difficult to navigate even for adults, yet developmental research has almost exclusively focused on the prosocial aspects of reciprocity. To explore the developmental origins of this conflict, we investigated 5- to 8-year-old children's evaluations of and engagement in prosocial cheating to return a favor. In Study 1, children evaluated protagonists in hypothetical scenarios who cheated to benefit others whom they did or did not owe a favor. Across ages, children condemned cheating and favored honesty over reciprocity from a third-party perspective. In Study 2, children participated in two games in which they had the opportunity to cheat (by peeking behind a barrier or misreporting die-rolling outcomes, respectively) to win prizes for an adult partner who had either previously shared a valued resource with them (reciprocity condition) or not (control condition). Across ages, children were more likely to benefit a partner by cheating when they owed them a favor than when they did not owe them a favor. These findings suggest that children as young as 5 are willing to disregard honesty in favor of reciprocating prosocial acts, highlighting the developmental origins of a tension between interpersonal obligations and moral norms.

Summary

• In two studies, we investigated 5- to 8-year-old children's evaluations of and engagement in prosocial cheating and prosocial cheating to return a favor.
• From a third-party perspective, children strongly endorsed rule compliance and condemned cheating, even when it helped someone else.
• When acting themselves, children cheated to benefit a partner, especially when the partner had previously done them a favor.
• The results reveal that reciprocity can override honesty norms in early childhood, shaping moral decision-making.