Do children need to give less reason to get their will when they have the power anyway? – The moderating roles of culture and age on the relationship of power and reason-giving

Abstract

Social conflicts are part of societies and groups. While social animals, might resolve them using power and dominance, Humans evolved an alternative strategy characterised by debating, arguing, and reasoning. It functions as the basis for social skills; however, the question arises whether power impacts decision-making during children's development. This study aims to gain insights into the relationship between reason-giving and power among children, examining the moderating roles of culture and age, two factors that have been shown to impact reasoning behaviour. We hypothesised that children exchange more reasons with equal others. Cultural context is expected to moderate this relationship, with more substantial effects in hierarchical cultures with high-power distance (Kenya) than in egalitarian, low-power distance cultures (the Netherlands). Additionally, we hypothesised that power's influence on reason-giving changes with age, weakening in the Netherlands and strengthening in Kenya. Participants included 131 dyads of children (Mage = 7.49, SD = 1.56) from Kenya and the Netherlands. A mixed experimental, within-subjects design was applied, and children's reasoning was observed during a problem-solving task involving conflicting evidence in either the equality or inequality condition. Experiments were recorded, transcribed, coded and finally analysed using GLMMs. Results support the third hypothesis that reason-giving increases with age. The other three hypotheses were not supported. However, the study contributed to previous research on reason-giving in children. The cross-cultural approach offered first insights into the relationship between power and reason-giving in children and the role of culture and age, offering first indications and suggestions for future research.