Giving or Taking: Children’s Development of Leadership Concepts in Group Contributions and Rewards

Leadership roles can emphasize serving others (responsibility) or serving oneself (entitlement), yet little is known about how these concepts emerge, especially from the angle of leaders. Understanding children’s development of leadership concepts offers insights into how social structures are internalized, since early perceptions may guide life-long social interactionss. Across four experiments with Chinese children (total N  = 930, ages 6–12), participants heard stories about a four-member group where either they or another child was the leader. Children then judged how leaders (vs. non-leaders) should contribute to a group task and share rewards. Six-year-olds held themselves to stricter standards than others: as leaders, they endorsed self-sacrifice—contributing more and taking less—yet viewed other leaders as entitled to extra when resources were abundant (Experiment 1). A control with a non-leader “special-color” role confirmed this self-sacrificial norm was specific to being the leader (Experiment 2). With age, these beliefs shifted toward conditional responsibility: by ages 10–12, children believed leaders should contribute more only when the group needs it and otherwise favored equal contributions (Experiment 3). Experiment 4 suggests an explanation: younger children prioritized leadership responsibility over fairness, whereas older children balanced responsibility with fairness, regarding a leader’s modest extra effort as fair. These findings provide the first evidence that children’s leadership concepts develop from self-sacrifice to conditional fairness across middle to late childhood, highlighting how cultural context and fairness norms shape emerging leadership concepts.