Latent class logistic regression analysis was used to investigate sources of individual differences in profiles of prosocial behavior. Eighty-seven 18-month-olds were observed in tasks assessing sharing with a neutral adult, instrumentally helping a neutral adult, and instrumentally helping a sad adult. Maternal mental state language (MSL) and maternal sensitivity were also assessed. Despite differing motivational demands across tasks, we found consistency in children's prosocial behavior with three latent classes: no prosocial behavior, moderate prosocial behavior, and frequent instrumental helping across emotional situations. Maternal sensitivity, MSL, and their interaction predicted toddlers' membership in the classes. These findings evidence moderate consistency in early prosocial behaviors and suggest that these capacities are motivated in early relationships with caregivers.

This study investigated the influence of emotion on toddlers' prosocial behavior in instrumental helping tasks with an unfamiliar adult. The goals were to examine whether early prosocial behavior was affected by (1) the adult's expressions of sadness (in contrast to a neutral expression) as a cue of need and (2) toddlers' emotion understanding. Thirty-five 18-to 20-month-olds participated in eight trials in which an experimenter either indicated need for assistance (experimental condition) or did not (control). In addition, the experimenter expressed either sadness or neutral affect in each trial. Toddlers' emotion understanding was assessed using maternal reports of children's emotion words. The experimenter's emotional expression alone was not associated with prosocial behavior, but toddlers helped more in experimental than control conditions. However, toddlers with larger emotion word vocabularies were marginally more prosocial when the experimenter expressed sadness, and girls provided more assistance than boys in experimental conditions. These findings highlight the complex influences of emotion on early prosocial motivation.Correspondence should be sent to Emily K. Newton,

This study tested predictions from Bowlby's attachment theory about children's memory and suggestibility. Young children (3-5years old, N=88; 76% Caucasians) and their parents took part in the Strange Situation Procedure, a moderately distressing event and "gold standard" for assessing children's attachment quality. The children were then interviewed about what occurred during the event. Children's age and attachment security scores positively predicted correct information in free recall and accuracy in answering specific questions. For children with higher (vs. lower) attachment security scores, greater distress observed during the Strange Situation Procedure predicted increased resistance to misleading suggestions. In addition, for children who displayed relatively low distress during the Strange Situation Procedure, significant age differences in memory and suggestibility emerged as expected. However, for children who displayed greater distress during the Strange Situation Procedure, younger and older children's memory performances were equivalent. Findings suggest that attachment theory provides an important framework for understanding facets of memory development with respect to attachment-related information and that distress may alter assumed age patterns in memory development.

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