Modeling cooperation: Gendered parenting and its impact on children's reciprocal actions.

Abstract

Reciprocity emerges early in development, yet its bidirectional dynamics within parent-child dyads remain underexplored. Here, we examined how children's presence and gender shape parents' reciprocal behavior toward third parties, and in turn, how parental modeling shapes their 4-year olds' reciprocal responses toward others. In a two-phase experiment, 179 Israeli parents (M_age = 38, SD = 5.6) interacted with an adult partner who behaved either cooperatively or selfishly, and in the presence or absence of their child (son or daughter). Subsequently, 174 children (M_age = 4.58, SD = 0.78) responded to a peer partner's similar actions. Parents reciprocated cooperation at high rates regardless of their child's presence or gender (87%), but reciprocated selfishness more with sons present (72%) than with daughters (45%). In turn, children reciprocated selfishness at high rates regardless of their parent's behavior (92%), but aligned with their parent's behavior when interacting with cooperative partners. Together, the findings highlight the context and gender specificity of reciprocity among parents and children: Parents retaliate in kind more when accompanied by sons, whereas children align with their parents only when facing cooperative partners. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).