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Similarity of behaviors or attributes is often used to infer social affiliation and prosociality. Does this reflect reasoning using a simple expectation of homophily, or more complex reasoning about shared utility? We addressed this question by examining the inferences children make from similar choices when this similarity does or does not cause competition over a zero-sum resource. Four- to six-year-olds (N = 204) saw two vignettes, each featuring three characters (a target plus two others) choosing between two types of resources. In all stories, each character expressed a preference: one 'other' chose the same resource as the target, while a second 'other' chose the different resource. In one condition there were enough resources for all the characters; in the other condition, one type of resource was limited, with only one available (inducing potential competition between the target and the similar-choice other). Children then judged which of the two 'other' characters was being nicer (prosocial judgment) and which of the two was more preferred by the target (affiliative inference). When resources were limited (vs. unlimited), children were less likely to select the similar other as being nice. Children's initial tendency to report that the target preferred the similar other was also eliminated in the limited resource scenario. These findings show that children's reasoning about similarity is not wholly based on homophily. Instead, by reasoning about shared utility - how each person values the goals of others - children engage in flexible inferences regarding whether others' similar preferences and behaviors have positive or negative social meaning.

People care about others’ welfare to varying degrees, captured by the welfare tradeoff ratio (WTR), or the weight placed on another person’s welfare compared to one’s own. People can infer another person’s WTR toward themselves and reciprocate by adjusting their own WTR toward that person. However, the evolutionary origin of such a capacity is unclear. In games with perfect information, a heuristic strategy with tit-for-tat-like reciprocity is unbeatable, and the additional computation of inferring the opponent’s WTR confers no benefit. Here we show that in games with asymmetric information, where the actor has more accurate information about the payoff structure than the observer, the heuristic strategy is prone to errors from misperception, while reciprocity based on the inference of WTRs is robust. These findings suggest that asymmetric information about social decisions, a realistic modification to the game environment, may have contributed to the evolution of people’s understanding of others’ WTRs.

To successfully navigate their social world, humans need to understand and map enduring relationships between people: Humans need a concept of social affiliation. Here I propose that the initial concept of social affiliation, available in infancy, is based on the extent to which one individual consistently takes on the goals and needs of another. This proposal grounds affiliation in intuitive psychology, as formalized in the naive-utility-calculus model. A concept of affiliation based on interpersonal utility adoption can account for findings from studies of infants' reasoning about imitation, similarity, helpful and fair individuals, "ritual" behaviors, and social groups without the need for additional innate mechanisms such as a coalitional psychology, moral sense, or general preference for similar others. I identify further tests of this proposal and also discuss how it is likely to be relevant to social reasoning and learning across the life span. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From early childhood, humans demonstrate an understanding of ownership and the rights it confers to owners. This understanding impacts how children reason about people's actions, emotions, and internal mental states. The set of inferences and judgments children make in the context of ownership suggest that their concept of ownership is integrated with their intuitive theory of psychology. Here we try to explain that integration, proposing that children think of ownership as an exclusive assignment of a resource's reward value to its owner. Such a concept can then factor into children's psychological reasoning, based in an application of a naive utility calculus. This reasoning includes expectations about the choices and emotions of owners and non-owners, as well as their judgments of moral acceptability in the context of resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]