Two and a half-year-old children are prosocial even when their partners are not

Sebastián‐Enesco, Carla; Hernández-Lloreda, Marı́a Victoria; Colmenares, Fernando

doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2013.05.007

Cited by 35 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…First, no studies that we know of have examined this question in children younger than 21 months of age, even though children can help with simple instrumental tasks as early as 12 months (Sommerville, Schmidt, Yun, & Burns, 2013). Second, in contrast to this demonstration of early prosocial selectivity, studies that measure how likely children are to help a single recipient who was nice or mean to them, rather than forcing them to choose between helping a nice recipient or a mean recipient, suggest that it is not until age 3 that children adjust their prosocial behavior on the basis of how others have treated them (Fujisawa, Kutsukake, & Hasegawa, 2008;Levitt, Weber, Clark, & McDonnell, 1985;Sebastián-Enesco et al, 2013;Warneken & Tomasello, 2013).…”

Section: Features Of the Recipientmentioning

confidence: 93%

Beyond Good and Evil

Martin

Olson

2015

Perspect Psychol Sci

101

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Researchers have proposed different accounts of the development of prosocial behavior in children. Some have argued that behaviors like helping and sharing must be learned and reinforced; others propose that children have an initially indiscriminate prosocial drive that declines and becomes more selective with age; and yet others contend that even children's earliest prosocial behaviors share some strategic motivations with the prosociality of adults (e.g., reputation enhancement, social affiliation). We review empirical and observational research on children's helping and sharing behaviors in the first 5 years of life, focusing on factors that have been found to influence these behaviors and on what these findings suggest about children's prosocial motivations. We use the adult prosociality literature to highlight parallels and gaps in the literature on the development of prosocial behavior. We address how the evidence reviewed bears on central questions in the developmental psychology literature and propose that children's prosocial behaviors may be driven by multiple motivations not easily captured by the idea of intrinsic or extrinsic motivation and may be selective quite early in life.

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Section: Features Of the Recipientmentioning

confidence: 93%

Beyond Good and Evil

Martin

Olson

2015

Perspect Psychol Sci

101

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“…Using these games with differing alternative distributions it is possible to systematically examine the role of costs to the self in sharing and giving. Prosocial responding assessed by such experimental paradigms is already shown in two and a half-year-old children, whose behavior is not contingent on prosocial or selfish behavior of their interaction partners (Sebastián-Enesco et al, 2013). Already by 3 years of age, children have an understanding of the fairness norm and that others expect them to share equally (Smith et al, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Sharing and giving across adolescence: an experimental study examining the development of prosocial behavior

Güroğlu¹,

Bos²,

Crone³

2014

Front. Psychol.

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In this study we use economic exchange games to examine the development of prosocial behavior in the form of sharing and giving in social interactions with peers across adolescence. Participants from four age groups (9-, 12-, 15-, and 18-year-olds, total N = 119) played three types of distribution games and the Trust game with four different interaction partners: friends, antagonists, neutral classmates, and anonymous peers. Nine- and 12-year-olds showed similar levels of prosocial behavior to all interaction partners, whereas older adolescents showed increasing differentiation in prosocial behavior depending on the relation with peers, with most prosocial behavior toward friends. The age related increase in non-costly prosocial behavior toward friends was mediated by self-reported perspective-taking skills. Current findings extend existing evidence on the developmental patterns of fairness considerations from childhood into late adolescence. Together, we show that adolescents are increasingly better at incorporating social context into decision-making. Our findings further highlight the role of friendships as a significant social context for the development of prosocial behavior in early adolescence.

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“…Previous research within the developmental literature has shown that whether or not children engage in reciprocity varies according to donor age, with 5-year-old children reciprocating in contexts that require the distribution of resources via co-operative turn taking 21 , as well as in contexts where donors are required to select the value of the resource allocated to their partner (fixed 17, 19 , or non fixed 20, 22 payoffs). In contrast, younger preschoolers have shown less evidence of reciprocity, with 2-year-olds often allocating resources randomly 17 , and 3-year-olds displaying reciprocity in some studies 20 , but not others 22 . However, despite the studies described above making great inroads in detailing whether or not reciprocity occurs, the precise mechanisms underpinning any reciprocity displayed, and the way in which reciprocity develops beyond the age of 5 years, are yet to be fully examined.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, despite the studies described above making great inroads in detailing whether or not reciprocity occurs, the precise mechanisms underpinning any reciprocity displayed, and the way in which reciprocity develops beyond the age of 5 years, are yet to be fully examined. Indeed, with the exception of one study 17 where no reciprocity was evident, previous examples of reciprocity have been restricted to contexts in which the participants were allowed to respond immediately, in an iterated manner, to their partner’s donating behavior, leaving open the question of the complexity of the mechanisms underlying such donating decisions, a gap that the current study aims to address.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Young children display an increase in prosocial donating in response to an upwards shift in generosity by a same-aged peer

Messer

Burgess

Sinclair

et al. 2017

Sci Rep

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Adult humans frequently engage in the reciprocal exchange of resources with other individuals. However, despite the important role that reciprocity plays in maintaining co-operative exchange we know relatively little of when, and how, reciprocity develops. We first asked whether pairs of young children (M = 74 months) would engage in direct reciprocity in a ‘prosocial choice test’ where a donor could select either a higher, or a lower, value reward (1v 2) for a partner at no cost to themselves (1v 1). In a subsequent retest we asked, for the first time, whether young children increase their level of prosocial donating in response to an upwards shift in generosity from an initially selfish partner. In order to determine whether interacting with another child was fundamental to the development of reciprocity we included a novel yoked non-agent condition. The results suggest that the children were engaging in a calculated form of reciprocity where the prior behavior of their child partner influenced their subsequent level of donation days after the initial exchange. Crucially we show that the children were not influenced by the value of the rewards received per se, rather selection by a human agent was key to reciprocity.

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Two and a half-year-old children are prosocial even when their partners are not

Cited by 35 publications

References 45 publications

Beyond Good and Evil

Beyond Good and Evil

Sharing and giving across adolescence: an experimental study examining the development of prosocial behavior

Young children display an increase in prosocial donating in response to an upwards shift in generosity by a same-aged peer

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