If a child you know refuses to share his toys, chances are he knows he is doing wrong but cannot help it. New research published in March in Neuron reveals that underdevelopment of an impulse control center in the brain is, at least in part, the reason children who fully understand the concept of fairness fail to act accordingly.

As babies, we are inherently selfish, but as we grow, we become better at social strategy—that is, satisfying our own needs while behaving in a manner acceptable to others. Nikolaus Steinbeis of the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, Germany, wondered how this skill develops.

Steinbeis and his team examined kids aged six to 14 performing two similar decision-making tasks that involved sharing poker chips with an anonymous recipient (the chips were redeemable for prizes). In task one, the size of a child's offering carried no consequences, but in the second task, the anonymous youngster could reject the offer, if he or she considered it unfair, and both children would get nothing. Task two thus required social strategy; task one did not.

In task one, older and younger children behaved similarly. But in task two, younger children both made worse offers and were more willing to accept bad offers even though they understood that these offers were unfair. Imaging the kids' brains while they performed the tasks revealed less activity in the younger kids' impulse-control regions in their prefrontal cortex, the seat of decision making and self-control in the brain. In addition, independent of age, less activity in this region paralleled less social strategy.

So if a kid has trouble playing fair, it is probably not because he does not understand the concept. Rather he simply cannot resist the urge to grab all the cookies and run. Steinbeis points out, however, that this finding does not excuse bad behavior. “Just because the brain is that way doesn't mean it can't be changed,” he says. “Education and setting a good example can have an enormous impact.”

12 Comments

1. 1. promytius 09:50 AM 7/5/12

   No. He simply hasn't differentiated himself from others, as you grown-ups reading this have obviously forgotten. Read Piaget. Doesn't anyone go to college to get educated anymore? OR, is it all just blind speciality? You've got to read more outside your discipline. Finally, without more info on the "study" we have no reason to bother with it - the 'study' could have been four kids at a cookout. Where's the repeated results? What were the statistical details? You won't get any because the study was too small to matter, and off-target anyway. Piaget said something to the effect of, "If your child seems to be a little behind the others, just wait a while; they'll catch up." Things happen when they do; analyzing them to find alternate and irrelevant details seems a waste. Have that cookout instead and get Johnny to play nice.

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2. 2. gesres in reply to promytius 12:17 PM 7/5/12

   Why do you accept Piaget's conclusions as correct and these as false? If you want the details about how the research was conducted, you'll probably have to look at the original paper. It isn't reasonable to expect a popular science publication like Scientific American to publish all the details.

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3. 3. Not 'Tarded in reply to gesres 03:35 PM 7/5/12

   No, but they could supply a link to the study, as many sites, like "Futurity", do...
   
   

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4. 4. SpoonmanWoS 04:02 PM 7/5/12

   Here, let me Google that for you:
   
   http://www.cell.com/neuron/abstract/S0896-6273(12)00077-3
   
   

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5. 5. airjarvis 08:20 PM 7/5/12

   Just a thought...this behavior is by design. We are still animals on this planet born with survival skills. If our skills are better than others than we go on to the next stage of development. It is our technology that has overcome the "survival of the fittest" laws in nature. Sometimes pushed to very uncomfortable lengths.

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6. 6. ExpandTheMind 09:02 PM 7/5/12

   So this urge must not dissipate throughout the lifetime of a republican. I'd like to see a study performed -ha.

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7. 7. StephenHoughton 08:24 PM 7/6/12

   Considering their is some evidence that conservatives are more charitable, one might conclude that it is democrats that have an underdeveloped prefrontal cortex. -ha

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8. 8. StephenHoughton 08:32 PM 7/6/12

   Considering there is some evidence that conservatives are more charitable, one might conclude that it is democrats that have an underdeveloped prefrontal cortex. -ha

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9. 9. hesse 11:06 AM 7/9/12

   Conservatives are not actually more charitable. That information includes giving to one's church, which is paying for your own salvation. Hardly charity.

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10. 10. bucketofsquid 04:35 PM 7/13/12

    It isn't about liberal or conservative. It is all about if you are a sociopath or not. Many liberals are liberal for purely selfish reasons just as many conservatives are conservative for selfish reasons.
    
    I would be curious as to how a known sociopath, an experienced politician and a very wealthy business exec would show for brain development in the areas involved in sharing.
    
    Considering that many of the poor share directly rather than via a formal charity, I doubt that any study would result in accurate representation of generosity by political orientation or economic class.

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11. 11. WizeHowl 05:58 AM 7/15/12

    What this study shows is that parents have not taught their children to "share"! I have raised my grandson who turns five next week, since the age of 2 months and he has been sharing his toys and food since he was a baby. When offered a biscuit he will always put his hand out and offer to share it with us, and always with a smile on his face.
    
    When playing with his toys around other children he will ask the others to join in and play with him, or if they are playing with something he would like to play with he will go and ask if he can join in with them, he would never take a toy from another child, if another child asks him for the toy he is playing with he will gladly hand it over and ask if he can join them. This is what sharing is all about, something we have instilled in him since he was a baby.
    
    It is not intuitive, it is a learned behavior, and if anything this study just shows up how bad mannered the parents are, not how poorly the children react to the situation.
    
    Any child over the age of 18 months that has not been taught to share has been brought up by parents who do not care about their child's well being. Any child who can not share going through school will have a very hard time making friends.
    
    

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12. 12. lkw787a 05:28 PM 7/15/12

    My daughter, a very sweet and empathetic two year old, is currently going through this stage where everything she sees is "mine!" I was surprised when she started this behavior since it deviated so thoroughly from her earlier behavior and am glad to know that it is a normal phase that she will grow out of.

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