Information Processing and the Development of Cooperative, Competitive, and Individualistic Social Values

Previous research has consistently demonstrated age differences in cooperative, competitive, and individualistic social values. A task analysis of the major cooperative, competitive, and individualistic social values (equality, group enhancement, altruism, superiority, rivalry, and individualism) indicates that the outcome transformations associated with the equality, group enhancement, and superiority social values require more information processing than do the outcome transformations associated with the altruism, rivalry and individualism social values. Therefore, the present investigation was designed to assess the possibility that the developmental difference in social values is associated with the development of information-processing capabilities. One hundred and nine 3- to 10-year-old children completed an individualized regression assessment of social values, a central-incidental memory measure, and a free-recall word list task. The results indicated that age, sex, and memory were all significantly related to the expression of social values. The results were interpreted from a cognitive social learning perspective.