Ownership is a cornerstone of many human societies and can be understood as a cooperative arrangement, where individuals refrain from taking each other's property. Owners can thus trust others to respect their property even in their absence. We investigated this principle in 5- to 7-year-olds (N = 152) from 4 diverse societies. Children…

Group ownership is ubiquitous-property is owned by countries, corporations, families, and clubs. However, people cannot understand group ownership by simply relying on their conceptions of ownership by individuals, as group ownership is subject to complexities that do not arise when property is individually owned. We report 6 experiments…

Mothers' interventions in object conflicts during play between toddler peers of the same age and sex were examined. Results showed that mothers frequently intervened. Mothers favored the other child in the conflict, except with older sons, and were inconsistent in endorsing rights of ownership or possession. (BC)