Abstract

This study examined how drawing attention to recipients’ emotional and physical characteristics influenced the sharing behavior of Korean adults and children. Adults and 5- to 6-year-old children were asked to think about recipients’ emotions or physical characteristics before they allocate their resources in a dictator game. Participants in the emotional condition, participants were asked to think about the recipient’s feelings, whereas those in the physical characteristics condition were asked to think about the size of the recipient’s hand. The adults and 5- to 6-year-old children in the emotional condition both allocated significantly more stickers to the recipients than did the participants in the physical characteristics condition. This result suggests that drawing attention to recipients’ emotions promoted prosociality in resource sharing among both adults and 5- to 6-year-old children.