This research tested the hypothesis that prudence and altruism, in situations involving future desires, follow a similar developmental course between the ages of 3 and 5 years. Using a modified delay of gratification paradigm, 3-to 5-year-olds were tested on their ability to forgo a current opportunity to obtain some stickers in order to gratify their own future desires-or the current or future desires of a research assistant. Results showed that in choices involving current desires, altruistic behavior was unrelated to age. However, prudence and altruism involving future situations were correlated with one another and with age. Children under 4 years of age demonstrated significantly less futureoriented prudence than the older children (F(1,49) = 15.75; px.001) and significantly less altruism involving future situations (F( 1,49) = 33.24; p<.OOl). The data for the 3-year-olds, but not for the older children, also showed agepartialled correlations between the two future-oriented choice situations. These results suggest that between 3 and 4 years, children acquire the ability to deal with future-oriented situations through the development of some common mechanism which affects both future-oriented prudence and altruism.

Two experiments examined the development of future-oriented prosocial

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of perceived activity choice upon the frequency of exercise behavior of adult women. Thirty‐six recent enrollees in a private health club were recruited for involvement in a new exercise program. At an initial organizational meeting, subjects ranked their preferences for different activities and completed a number of self‐report inventories. Subjects were paired on the basis of their activity preferences so as to establish two matched groups of subjects. One member of each pair was then randomly assigned to a choice condition while the other was assigned to a no choice control condition. Perceived choice was manipulated at the time of an individual's next visit to the club, with subjects in the choice group being led to believe that their initial activity selections were the basis for their programs whereas subjects in the control group were informed that they had been assigned a standardized exercise program by the club's instructresses. The overall attendance of the choice group was better than that of the control group. Across both groups there was a significant decline in attendance over the 6‐week period but the decrement was significantly greater in the control group. At the conclusion of the 6‐week period, subjects in the choice condition expressed a greater intention to continue exercising at the club than did subjects in the control condition.

Female members of an adult physical fitness club, who had been inactive for a period of at least one month, were assigned to one of four treatment groups. A control group received no treatment while the other three groups underwent different treatments during a telephone interview. A regular call‐up group received a standard club telephone interview advocating greater participation in the club's activities; a decision‐balance‐sheet group completed a list of anticipated gains and losses for attending the club's activities; a positive‐outcomes‐only group (i.e., self‐persuasion condition) completed a list of anticipated gains for attending the club's activities. Attendance rates for both the decision balance‐sheet group and the self‐persuasion group were better than for the control group. Also, attendance for the self‐persuasion group was significantly better than for the regular club call‐up group, Results are discussed in terms of self‐persuasion and emotional inoculation processes with respect to behavioral change and behavioral maintenance.

No abstract