Assessing the child and adolescent personality: A decade of research

The development of prosocial behaviour in children and adolescents: a twin study

“…There have been several other twin studies of traits related to prosocial behaviour. Scourfield et al (1999) examined social cognition in 5–16‐year‐old twins using parent‐report data and found it to be highly heritable and there have also been several twin studies of the temperamental dimension of sociability, which has also been associated with prosocial behaviour (Silva, 1992). Heritability estimates ranged from 27% in toddlers (Plomin et al, 1993) to about 65% in older children and adolescents (Saudino, McGuire, Reiss, Hetherington, & Plomin, 1995; Stevenson 1997) with the shared environmental effect generally being negligible.…”

Multiple Goal Orientations as Predictors of Moral Behavior in Youth Soccer

“…Moreover, Eisenberg and Fabes (1998) consider prosocial behaviors to be of fundamental importance to the quality of social interactions. Finally, prosocial behaviors have been linked with constructs that facilitate the development of relationships, such as sociability (e.g., Silva, 1992) and social competence (Eisenberg & Fabes, 1998). Based on the aforementioned, we expected that social affiliation would positively predict prosocial behavior and negatively predict antisocial behavior in soccer.…”

Middle childhood: Social and emotional development.

“…Such individual characteristics as temperament, personality, and motivation play a role in the likelihood of prosocial behavioral enactment. For instance, children who approach new people and situations with relative ease are more likely to help others than those who are shy or socially anxious (e.g., Silva, 1992). This is particularly true when a situation involves social initiation rather than requests for assistance (Eisenberg & Fabes, 1998).…”