Both 3- and 5-year olds shared more when they were obligated to share than when it was voluntary. However, such obligated sharing did not make them happy.
与自愿分享相比， 3岁和5岁的孩子在有义务分享的时候，都会分享更多的东西。然而，这种尽义务的分享并不能使他们快乐
New study shows preschool kids who share of their own accord are happy, but not when they are obliged to do so.
一项新的研究表明，学龄前儿童发自内心的自愿分享是快乐的，但当他们有义务这样做时，他们并不快乐。
— By Srividya Sundaresan
If humans are primarily motivated by self-interest, as traditional economic theory claims, why do we sometimes perform acts of generosity that don’t yield us any material benefits? Indeed, such altruistic behavior may sometimes even come at a personal cost. So, why do we like to give? Because, it turns out, sharing makes us happy. And because we feel happy, we want to share more, explaining why psychologists consistently find that people like to “give” more than they like to “have”.
如果人类的主要动机——正如传统的经济学理论所宣称的那样——是利己的，为什么我们有时会表现出慷慨大方的行为，却又不会给我们带来物质利益的呢？事实上，这种利他行为有时甚至会 付出个人的代价。那么，我们为什么要付出呢？因为，事实证明，分享让我们快乐。因为我们感到快乐，所以我们想分享更多，解释了为什么心理学家总是发现 ，与喜欢的“拥有”相比，人们更喜欢“给予”。
But do we still enjoy the emotional benefits of sharing if it is not entirely voluntary, but obligated by social norms? Dr. Zhen Wu and colleagues examined this question in a group of preschool children in China, and reported their findings in Frontiers in Psychology. This study is especially intriguing since little children are often encouraged to share, but very little is known about whether they benefit emotionally from such sharing.
但是，如果分享不是完全自愿的，而是出于社会规范的义务，我们是否仍然会从分享中享有情感获益？伍珍博士和他的同事们在中国的一批学龄前儿童身上研究了这个问题，并将他们研究成果发表在《前沿心理学》上。这项研究特别令人感兴趣，因为 经常鼓励小孩子们分享，但很少有人知道他们是否从这种分享中受益。
In this study, Wu and colleagues compared positive facial expressions (as a measure of happiness) in 3- and 5-year old children who performed a sharing task, which consisted of sharing stickers with their peers. The experiment was set up such that the children were in two sharing groups: one group that shared voluntarily, and the other because they felt obligated to do so.
在这项研究中，伍珍和他的同事比较了3岁和5岁的孩子在分享任务时的积极面部表情（作为衡量幸福的标准），其中包括与同伴分享贴纸。实验将孩子们分成两组：一组自愿分享，另一组 的分享，是因为他们觉得自己有义务这样做。
Both 3- and 5-year olds shared more when they were obligated to share than when it was voluntary. However, such obligated sharing did not make them happy. Interestingly, both 3- and 5-year olds showed greater happiness when they gave stickers away voluntarily, than when they kept them for themselves. “So, it seems that the motivation to give does count,” explains Dr. Wu, “and it also suggests that it is unrealistic to expect a very young child to share under pressure and be happy about it!”
与自愿分享相比， 3岁和5岁的孩子在有义务分享的时候，都会分享更多的东西。然而，这种义务分享并不能使他们快乐。有趣的是，与当3岁和5岁的孩子把帖子留给自时相比，他们在主动分享贴纸时 表现出了更多的快乐。伍博士解释说：“看来，给予的动机是有价值的，同时也表明，期望一个很小的孩子在压力下分享，并为此感到高兴是不现实的！”
These findings provide fascinating insights into the psychology of preschool age children, and the first evidence that sharing under social norms is less emotionally rewarding than sharing voluntarily. Dr. Wu suggests that preschool teachers might use these findings to guide how they foster sharing in their students.
这些发现为学龄前儿童的心理提供了非常有趣的见解，第一个证据表明，在社会规范下的分享的情感回报比自愿分享来的少。伍博士建议幼儿教师可以利用这些发现来指导他们如何促进学生的分享。
But the study is not without its drawbacks, cautions Dr. Wu, “for instance, it is difficult to entirely rule out the influence of social norms even in the voluntary giving mode. The giver might have felt pressure to give even when told they were not obliged to.” An important future direction would be to not only replicate these findings with more controls, says Dr. Wu, but also to understand how the positive feedback loop works. “We need to examine how an act of generosity leads to happiness that in turn prompts another act of giving”. And that is a very fascinating question indeed.
但伍博士警告说，这项研究并非没有缺点，“例如，即使在自愿分享的模式下，也难以完全排除社会规范的影响。赠与者可能会感到压力，甚至在被告知他们没有义务这么做的时。”伍博士说，未来的一个重要方向不仅是要用更多的控制手段复制这些发现，还要理解正反馈回路是如何工作的。“我们需要研究一种慷慨的行为是如何导致幸福的，反过来又 是如何促使另一种给予行为。”。这确实是一个非常有趣的问题。
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