To cooperate effectively, both in small-scale interactions and large-scale collective-action problems, people frequently have to delay gratification (i.e., resist short-term temptations in favor of joint long-term goals). Although delay-of-gratification skills are commonly considered critical in children’s social-cognitive development, they have rarely been studied in the context of cooperative decision-making. In the current study, we therefore presented pairs of children (N = 207 individuals) with a modified version of the famous marshmallow test, in which children’s outcomes were interdependently linked such that the children were rewarded only if both members of the pair delayed gratification. Children from two highly diverse cultures (Germany and Kenya) performed substantially better than they did on a standard version of the test, suggesting that children are more willing to delay gratification for cooperative than for individual goals. The results indicate that from early in life, human children are psychologically equipped to respond to social interdependencies in ways that facilitate cooperative success.

中文翻译：

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儿童因合作而延迟满足

为了在小规模互动和大规模集体行动问题中进行有效合作，人们经常不得不延迟满足（即抵制短期诱惑，支持共同的长期目标）。尽管延迟满足技能通常被认为对儿童的社会认知发展至关重要，但很少在合作决策的背景下对其进行研究。因此，在目前的研究中，我们向成对的儿童（N = 207 个人）展示了著名的棉花糖测试的修改版本，其中儿童的结果相互关联，因此只有当这对儿童的两个成员都延迟满足时，才能对儿童进行奖励。来自两种高​​度多样化文化（德国和肯尼亚）的儿童在测试的标准版本中表现明显优于他们，表明儿童更愿意延迟合作而不是个人目标的满足。结果表明，从生命的早期开始，人类儿童在心理上就具备以促进合作成功的方式应对社会相互依赖的能力。