Researchers investigated how prosocial sharing behavior develops from early childhood into adulthood across different cultural contexts. They sampled 320 children and 180 adults from two distinct socio-cultural environments: an individualistic metropolitan environment (Urban New York, USA) and a traditional, collectivist agricultural environment (Rural Oaxaca, Mexico).
To assess prosociality, participants completed a resource distribution task where they were given a set of valuable tokens (redeemable for rewards) and decided whether to share at least half of their tokens with an anonymous peer (the prosocial option) or keep them all for themselves.
| Age | Urban New York (%) | Rural Oaxaca (%) |
|---|---|---|
| 6 | 20 | 60 |
| 7 | 22 | 58 |
| 8 | 25 | 55 |
| 9 | 28 | 50 |
| 10 | 35 | 42 |
| 11 | 42 | 30 |
| 12 | 50 | 20 |
| 13 | 58 | 15 |
| 14 | 65 | 10 |
| 15 | 70 | 8 |
| 17 | 75 | 5 |
| Adult | 35 | 80 |
Analyse the data in Table 1 to explain two conclusions that the researchers investigating prosocial sharing and culture might draw from these results.
Practise Edexcel A Level Psychology Content with exam-style questions for A Level Psychology. 1,059 questions covering Issues around drug taking, Biological explanations of drug addiction, Learning explanations of drug addiction, Treatments for drug addiction, Anti-drug campaign and strategies, Individual differences, and Developmental psychology, matched to the Edexcel A Level Psychology (9PS0) specification and written in Paper 1, Paper 2 and Paper 3 style. Every question includes a full worked solution and mark scheme, so you can see where marks are awarded rather than just whether you got the answer right.
