This study examined children's self-assessment of their prosociality, relative to average peers, in situations where the recipient is described as “needy” versus “not needy” (at a school of average socioeconomic level in south Israel; N = 158; aged 6–12 years; 51% males, December–May 2021). The results show that older children exhibited the better-than-average (BTA) effect by seeing themselves as more generous than peers. In contrast, younger children displayed the worse-than-average effect by expecting peers to be more generous than themselves. However, both effects were attenuated (${\eta }_{\mathrm{p}}^2$ = .16) when the recipient was described as “needy,” leading to higher expectations of sharing from oneself and others. This implies that besides children's motivational tendency to self-evaluate as BTA, they also base their evaluations on actual environmental cues.

中文翻译：

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做得超出预期：接受者的需求在儿童对其相对亲社会性的看法中的作用


这项研究考察了在接受者被描述为“有需要”与“无需要”的情况下，儿童相对于普通同龄人对其亲社会性的自我评估（在以色列南部一所平均社会经济水平的学校； N = 158；6岁） –12 岁；51% 男性，2021 年 12 月至 5 月）。结果表明，年龄较大的孩子认为自己比同龄人更慷慨，从而表现出优于平均水平（BTA）的效果。相比之下，年幼的孩子由于期望同龄人比自己更慷慨，表现出比平均水平更差的效果。然而，这两种影响都减弱了（${\eta }_{\mathrm{p}}^2\$\$\; \{\backslash eta\}\_\{\backslash mathrm\{p\}\}^2\; \$\$$ = .16）当接收者被描述为“有需要的”时，导致对自己和他人分享的更高期望。这意味着，除了儿童自我评价为 BTA 的动机倾向外，他们的评价也基于实际的环境线索。