关键词: 所有权判断，劳动原则，先占，转移方式

Abstract: Labor plays an important role in guiding people’s ownership judgments. In daily life, labor often affects human’s ownership judgments along with some other principles, such as first possession. Previous studies have investigated how young children and adults judged ownership when there were conflicting cues between labor and first possession (Kanngiesser, Gjersoe, & Hood, 2010; Kanngiesser & Hood, 2014b; Hook, 1993). Some research found preschool children were more likely to assign ownership to the laborer than adults (Kanngiesser et al., 2010), while adults were inclined to give priority to the first possessor (Hook, 1993). However, these studies neglected the possible effect of transfer types on labor’s role in ownership judgments. In addition, most of previous studies focused on western samples, but rare study investigated Chinese children and adults’ ownership judgments based on labor rule. This study selected Chinese children aged 3- to 5-year-old and adults as subjects and examined their ownership judgments when some objects were transferred in the taking or borrowing ways and modified by a second person. The results showed there were a significant main effect of transfer type, F(1,116) = 19.54, p = .000, ηp2 = 0.14, and a significant main effect of age, F(3，116) = 11.07，p = .000, ηp2 = .22. Moreover, the interaction between transfer type and age were significant. F(3，116) =3.05，p = .031，ηp2 = .07. There were no significant differences in the ownership judgments for 3-year-olds between the two transfer conditions. Three-year-olds did not support either the original possessor or the laborer as the owner of newly created objects.In contrast, 4 to 5 years old and adults were less inclined to judge the laborer was the owner of newly created objects in the borrowing condition compared to the taking condition. Children aged 4 to 5 years of age tended to think that the laborer was the owner of newly created objects in the taking condition, while adults tended to support the original possessor in both transfer conditions. This research indicated that transfer types could affect human’s ownership judgments based on labor rule, and from 4 years old, children have been aware of this. Unlike adults who consistently support the first possessor as owner in both transfer conditions, preschoolers never selected the first possessor as owner, even in the borrowing condition. This suggests young children’s representation of ownership cues may be different from that of adults. It’s easier for young children to focus on the changes of objects’ appearances (which is correlated with the cue of labor) than the time sequence (which is correlated with the cue of first possession). We did not find 3-year-olds support any party in both transfer conditionswhich. This is to some extent consistent with previous cross-cultural studies (Kanngiesser, Itakura, & Hood, 2014; Kanngiesser et al., 2015). The results were discussed with different patterns of early education between Eastern and Western cultures.

Key words: ownership judgments, principle of labor, first possession, transfer types