Parents or caregivers of young children will know only too well the struggle of encouraging them to share toys and take turns during play. But according to a new study, children are unlikely to learn the value of turn-taking until the age of 5 years.

Share on Pinterest Younger children might engage in turn-taking, but they fail to understand the value of it until the age of 5, say researchers.

Study co-author Dr. Alicia Melis, assistant professor of behavioral science at the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom, and colleagues recently published their findings in the journal Psychological Science.

Turn-taking is a social skill that humans learn from a young age and apply to everyday scenarios throughout life – such as taking turns to take out the trash or collect the children from school.

In essence, turn-taking is a collaborative behavior; it requires a mutual understanding between two or more individuals that each turn-taking cycle will not always be self-beneficial, but that, overall, it can resolve a conflict of interests.

For their study, Dr. Melis and colleagues set out to investigate the age at which humans grasp the value of turn-taking.

To reach their findings, the researchers developed a turn-taking experiment, which they tested on 96 children – aged 3 ½ or 5 years old – and 12 chimpanzees.

For the experiment, subjects were placed in pairs. They had to take turns to pull trays in order to receive rewards that were placed upon them; when one subject pulled a tray to obtain a reward, the reward on the other tray was lost.

Each pair of children took part in 24 turn-taking experiments. Each chimpanzee took part in 48 turn-taking experiments with one partner, and a further 48 with another partner.