The influence of descriptive norm on the evaluation of donation behavior: Developmental changes from childhood to adolescence

Donation behavior is undoubtedly praiseworthy, but there is often a lack of clear standards for the appropriate amount for donations. Typically, individuals tend to use the donation behavior of the majority of people around them, known as descriptive norms, as a benchmark for evaluating a benefactor's contribution. The present study recruited 405 children and adolescents aged 5-14 years, with an additional 135 young adults included for comparison, in order to investigate how people, as third parties, evaluate the donation behavior of a protagonist when the protagonist's own donation behavior remains unchanged and the descriptive norms as the benchmark change relatively. The results showed that descriptive norm information impacted participants’ evaluation differently across age groups. For children aged 5-11, their moral judgments increased when the protagonist’s donation exceeded the descriptive norm and decreased the magnitude when the protagonist fell below the norm. Instead, compared to younger participants, adolescents aged 13-14 and adults tended to give lower evaluations for donations that exceeded the norm and gave relatively higher evaluations for donations that fell below the norm. Further analysis of the coding of reasons for evaluation revealed that children aged 5-11 primarily provided outcome-based reasons to evaluate the protagonist. Meanwhile, adolescents aged 13-14 and adults increasingly relied on descriptive normative information to infer the motivations behind the protagonist's donation actions and were more likely to consider the (negative) impact of these actions on others' reputations.