First arrival and owning the land: How children reason about ownership of territory

Two experiments provide evidence that children (9-12 years) infer ownership of a physical place from first arrival. In experiment 1, children (N = 284) indicated that a character owns the land more and has more ownership right than another character when arriving first compared with arriving at the same time. In the second experiment (N = 551) it was found that first arrivers who work the land are perceived to own the land more than those who do not work the land. Yet, the importance of investment for inferring ownership was not so strong to fully undermine the first arriver principle. Additionally, when the first arriving character intended to abandon the land she was considered to own the land less than when she had the intention to return. However, information about abandonment intention also was not relevant enough to fully undermine the possessory right of the first arriver.