Prosocial and Aggressive Behavior: A Longitudinal Study

Abstract

Developmental theorists have made strong claims about the fundamental prosocial or aggressive nature of the human infant. However, only rarely have prosocial behavior and aggression been studied together in the same sample. We charted the parallel development of both behaviors from infancy to childhood in a British community sample, using a two-construct, multimethod longitudinal design.Data were drawn from the Cardiff Child Development Study (CCDS), a prospective longitudinal study of a volunteer sample of parents and their firstborn children. A sample of 332 mothers was recruited from National Health Service (NHS) prenatal clinics and general practice clinics in Wales, UK, between Fall of 2005 and Summer of 2007. Potential participants represented the full range of sociodemographic classifications of neighborhoods. Participating families were divided about equally between middle-and working-class families, were somewhat more likely to have sons than daughters, and the majority (90%) were in a stable partnership. In response to standard categories recommended for use in Wales at the time, the majority (93%) of mothers reported themselves as Welsh, Scottish, English, or Irish; most others named a European or South Asian nationality.Of the 332 families agreeing to participate, 321 mothers (M age = 28 years) and 285 partners (M age = 31 years) were interviewed during the pregnancy and 321 of the families contributed data at least once after the child's birth. After an initial home visit at 6 months, data collection occurred in four additional waves of testing when children's mean ages were approximately 1, 1.5, 2.5, and 7 years. Data collection alternated between family homes and Cardiff Uni-

Kindchenschema and cuteness elicit interest in caring for and playing with young children, but less so when children are masked

“…The fact that children’s responses were predicted by three gender-related variables speaks against the possibility that our measure was insensitive or unreliable. The patterns are also consistent with prior findings that children of a certain age prefer same sex playmates 27 and that girls tend to be more positively oriented to others than boys (e.g., they are more prosocial 28 ). Thus, a plausible interpretation is that while children of this age can detect and respond to cuteness in humans, this information is not prioritized in the selection of playmates.…”

“A pirate goes nee-nor-nee-nor!” humor with siblings in middle childhood: A window to social understanding?

“…The present study focuses on N = 110 first-born children, a selected subsample of those who had been recruited for a longitudinal study of child development during their mothers’ pregnancies (the Cardiff Child Development Study; Hay et al, 2021). The focal children were observed at home when they were between 6.5 and 7.5 years of age ( M age = 6.91 years, SD = .38); 51 (46.4%) were female.…”

“…We sought to contribute to developmental theory that suggests childhood humor and pretend play may be underpinned by similar developmental processes (Bergen, 2019) and that a child’s production of humor may reflect their social–cognitive development (Bariaud, 1989; Bergen, 2002; Dunn, 1988; Leekam, 1991). Therefore, we drew on a corpus of observational data of interactions between siblings during play from a larger study of the development of first-born children (Hay et al, 2021). As part of a home visit at age 7 years, we conducted detailed observational coding of the focal children’s humor production during dressing-up play with younger siblings.…”

Neural processing of moral content reflects moral identity in 10‐year‐old children

“…Yet, avoidance of antisocial behavior has been proposed as a central part of the moral self‐concept in children (Sengsavang & Krettenauer, 2015). In childhood, refraining from behaviors such as fighting (Boulton, 1993) and unfair sharing (Smith et al., 2013) is an important challenge and plays a crucial role in moral development (Dahl, 2016; Hay et al., 2021). Furthermore, in middle childhood, the moral self‐concept was found to specifically relate to negative emotions associated with not sharing (the higher the moral self‐concept, the more children anticipated to feel bad if they would not share), rather than to the positive emotions elicited by sharing (Christner et al., 2020).…”