Children's Initial Responses and Beyond: Effects of Niceness and Similarity on Preference, Giving, and Memory

This study assessed children's preference, giving, and memory to investigate the impact of social information over time. We compared 5- and 6-year-olds' (N = 144) immediate or delayed responses to an individual who does or does not share their toy preference (similar vs. dissimilar) or an individual who treats others kindly or poorly (nice vs. mean). Immediately, children all preferred the similar or nice characters but gave more stickers to the similar character. This strong initial effect of similarity was not evident after 1 week; children's preference, giving, and memory reflected a greater long-term impact of niceness than similarity. These findings highlight the importance of using multiple features and measures to elucidate children's evolving views about others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]