When Helping Hurts: Children Think Groups That Receive Help Are Less Smart

• Sierksma, Jellie ^[1] ; Shutts, Kristin ^[1]
  1. [1] University of Wisconsin–Madison

     University of Wisconsin–Madison

     City of Madison, Estados Unidos

     
• Localización: Child development, ISSN 0009-3920, Vol. 91, Nº. 3, 2020, págs. 715-723
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Helping has many positive consequences for both helpers and recipients. However, in the present research, we considered a possible downside to receiving help: that it signals a deficiency. We investigated whether young children make inferences about intelligence from observing some groups of people receive help and other groups not. In a novel group paradigm, we show that children (4?6 years) think groups that receive help are less smart (n = 44) but not less nice (n = 45). Children also generalized their inferences about relative intelligence to new group members (n = 55; forced-choice-method). These results have implications for understanding how children develop stereotypes about intelligence as well as for educational practices that group children according to their ability.