Little Children's Participation in the Work of Adults, a Nascent Prosocial Behavior

The roots of human altruism

“…The variety of situations probed the children's ability to discern a variety of goals and intervene in a variety of ways. For instance, the Bischof- Kö hler, 1988;Johnson, 1982;Zahn-Waxler et al, 1992 Sharing Giving food or objects to others Hay et al, 1991;Levitt et al, 1985 Informing Providing useful information for others Dunn & Munn, 1986;Liszkowski et al, 2006 Instrumental helping Acting on behalf of others' goals Rheingold, 1982;Warneken et al 2006 experimenter used clothespins to hang towels on a line, when he accidentally dropped a clothespin on the floor and unsuccessfully reached for it. In this case, helping consisted in picking up the clothespin and handing it to the experimenter.…”

Conversation and Cooperation: Child Linguistic Maturity, Parental Speech, and Helping Behavior of Young Children

“…There were differences by age group favoring older children over younger in two tasks (both at p < .004) that reflect findings for other measures of cooperation used by Rheingold (1982). When age was used as a blocking factor, it appeared that girls participated more than boys in five tasks (significant at p values ranging from < .003 to < .05).…”

“…Barbara M. Lawrence 1927 Method The children and parents.-The sample consisted of the 60 children and parents from Study 2 of Rheingold (1982). There were 20 children in each age group (the mean ages of the groups were 19.7, 25.6, and 31.4 months).…”

Ethics and economics: A comment on Narvaez‘s “Revitalizing human virtue by restoring organic morality”

“…Well, nonetheless morality seems to enter the scene not where harmony rules, but where we miss it. Even though endowed with certain prosocial capacities (see Rheingold, 1982;Warneken & Tomasello, 2006;Zahn-Waxler, Radke-Yarrow, Wagner, & Chapman, 1992), one-year-olds lack the basic ingredient of perspective-taking, which is prerequisite for any kind of morality. They may feel a direct impulse to help according to their understanding of the problem, but not as a reaction to what the other person experiences.…”