Abstract
The purpose of this study was to examine the cognition, affection and behavior of young children's altruistic sharing. This study defined the sharing composed of three parts: cognition, affection and behavior. The operationalization of sharing cognition was to ask children if "giving toys or food out" or "having toys or food together with others" was sharing. Altruistic sharing affection was defined as love, sympathy or empathy which was elicited by giving a piece of chocolate to a good friend, a poor child or a child who wanted to eat chocolate urgently. Sharing behavior was defined as whether young children gave their chocolates out. How does young children's sharing develop? By client interview, there were 240 children from Taipei participated in this study after controlling for sex and area distribution. The results showed that young children's understanding of altruistic sharing became rigorous as getting older. 4-year-olds and above tended to make the value judgment of sharing on the basis of friendship, reciprocity, and social regulation; the affective factor of sharing for 3-and 4-gear-olds was mainly based on self-oriented relationship, for 5-and 6-year-olds, sympathy became the main affective consideration. For all children, sharing behavior slightly added by age, and the proportions of fair sharing also added by age obviously.