ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview on the development of sharing behavior from infancy to early childhood. I argue that sharing originates in different (and not mutually exclusive) pathways that provide the foundation for its emergence. One pathway constitutes how young children learn to deal with others’ negative emotions highlighting the role of attachment and emerging emotion-regulation capacities. The other pathway focuses on the reciprocal behavioral exchange between caregivers and children, often characterized by joy and mutual pleasure. It is argued that a number of early findings of sharing can be best explained by these social interaction schemes (e.g., give-and-take games). Subsequently, by entering the language game of moral justifications, children construct moral norms and fairness principles. In the same vein, children develop concepts of social relationships and an understanding or reciprocity. These norms and conceptual considerations increasingly guide their sharing behavior. Children also experience themselves as being more or less generous and fair and thus develop a moral self-concept that in itself affects future instances of sharing. Overall, the chapter aims at providing a developmental perspective on how sharing behavior emerges in human ontogeny and how an initially action-based routine becomes subject to moral and conceptual considerations.
