Stealing Cookies

"Toddlers can throw their fair share of tantrums, especially when you don't yield to their will. But by age 3, it turns out, the little [children] actually have a burgeoning sense of fairness and are inclined to right a wrong," writes Nadia Whitehead on the Mind/Shift website.

"When they see someone being mistreated, children as young as 3 years old will intervene on behalf of others nearly as often as for themselves, a study published this month in Current Biology suggests. Just don't ask them to punish the perpetrator. In one experiment, a devious puppet stole cookies that were originally intended for the child. In another, an innocent puppet cried out in distress when its marbles were snatched by a troublemaker puppet. It turned out that the children weren't just concerned about their own precious cookies or toys; they would jump in to assist the wronged puppets, too. Given the opportunity, 3-year-olds would intervene to return items a puppet had stolen to the original owner nearly 60 percent of the time. They would take back their own stolen items almost 80 percent of the time....

"The researchers also observed that the 3-year-olds did not seem eager to punish the bad puppets. When given only two options — to leave a stolen toy with a thief, or move it to a place where no one could have it — more than half the tots opted to leave the toy with the thief. Several of the kids were so uncomfortable with the idea of taking the toy away from the thief that they became distressed, and had to be removed from the study.... The 5-year-olds, on the other hand, weren't as hesitant to punish the bad guys. They opted to take the stolen cookies or marbles away from the thieves 70 percent of the time, even if that meant no one could enjoy them."

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