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

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.