Prosocial Behaviors in Early Childhood

Laible, Deborah; Karahuta, Erin

doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199964772.003.0017

Cited by 18 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Previous research suggests that prosocial behaviors emerge early in life and continue to increase throughout adolescence (Fabes & Eisenberg, 1998;Padilla-Walker, Carlo, & Memmott-Elison, 2018). These behaviors also become increasingly complex and selective with age, such as from comforting a distressed peer in toddlerhood (Laible & Karahuta, 2014) to engaging in costly helping (e.g., donating) in adolescence (Fabes & Eisenberg, 1998). Children and adolescents who are prosocial tend to experience better well-being (Layous, Nelson, Oberle, Schonert-Reichl, & Lyubomirsky, 2012), have more supportive friendships (Ciarrochi et al, 2017), and are less likely to engage in problematic behaviors (Mitsopoulou & Giovazolias, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Parenting and prosocial behaviors: A meta‐analysis

2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Ascertaining whether and the extent to which different aspects of parenting are associated with prosocial behaviors could inform parenting programs in cultivating healthy development. Multilevel meta-analyses (k = 124) involving children and adolescents were conducted to examine associations between parenting and prosocial behaviors while accounting for demographic and study characteristics. Authoritative parenting (r = .174, p < .001) was associated positively whereas authoritarian parenting (r = −.107, p < .001) was associated negatively with prosocial behaviors. These associations remained robust across infancy, childhood, and adolescence in both individualistic and collectivistic cultures. These associations also were invariant across child and parent gender. Moderating effects relevant to the type of prosocial behaviors under examination were identified. Authoritative parenting was associated positively with general, public, emotional, anonymous, dire, compliant, and other specific types of prosocial behaviors (e.g., sharing), but associated negatively with altruistic prosocial behaviors. Authoritarian parenting was associated negatively with general and altruistic prosocial behaviors, but not other specific types. Moderating effects relevant to study design and informant of parenting were found. No moderating effects were identified for the informant and target of prosocial behaviors. Associations of permissive (r = −.096, p < .01) and neglecting parenting (r = −.054, p = .543) remain unclear due to insufficient number of studies and publication biases. Implications for theories, research, and practice are discussed.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Parenting and prosocial behaviors: A meta‐analysis

2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…It is also possible that the bias for equity that seems present relatively early in development (Schmidt & Sommerville, 2011) develops along a different developmental timeline (Laible & Karahuta, 2014) than the skills involved in instrumental helping, and becomes more selective later in development. Although sharing develops around the same time as instrumental helping, sharing increases in frequency more slowly, both because it involves a cost to children (that instrumental helping does not) and because it involves more cognitive load (e.g., in keeping track of resources; Knight et al, 1993).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Discrimination and racism are pervasive issues that plague many societies and undermine cooperative and prosocial behaviors (i.e., actions intended to benefit others). However, a growing number of recent studies reveal that infants and toddlers are remarkably empathic and prosocial toward others and engage in multiple types of prosocial behavior (see Laible & Karahuta, 2014). This early prosocial behavior is motivated by children’s desires to interact socially with others and it emerges in the context of rich social exchanges from others (Dahl & Brownell, 2019).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This early prosocial behavior is motivated by children’s desires to interact socially with others and it emerges in the context of rich social exchanges from others (Dahl & Brownell, 2019). Research suggests that infants and toddlers (between 18 and 36 months) are remarkably responsive to the distress of others (see Hay & Cook, 2007; Laible & Karahuta, 2014, for a review) and will attempt to soothe distressed others by seeking contact with them (Hay et al, 1981), through involving others (such as their mother), or through active attempts to understand the others’ distress and comfort them (Hoffman, 2000). Toddlers will even demonstrate prosocial behavior to victimized others in absence of clear emotional distress cues from others (Vaish et al, 2009).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Toddlers’ helping, sharing, and empathic distress: Does the race of the target matter?

Laible¹,

Karahuta²,

Stout³

et al. 2021

Developmental Psychology

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Some work demonstrates toddlers show preferences in targets of their prosocial behavior, and a number of theorists have argued that young children become increasingly likely to direct their prosocial behavior to ingroup over outgroup targets with development. The goal of this study was to examine whether toddlers' early helping, sharing, and empathic distress were influenced by the race of the target person. Ninety-four White European American 18-month-old (17-19 months, M = 18.25, SD = .43; 55.1% male) and 24-month-old (23-25 months; M = 23.67, SD = .57; 53.1% male) toddlers took part in a series of tasks designed to assess children's instrumental helping, sharing, and empathic distress. These toddlers came from well-educated families (86.4% of mothers had a college degree and 73.8% of their partners had a college degree or more). In the study, the race of the needy target was manipulated, so that half of the children had the opportunity to respond prosocially to a White target and half had the opportunity to be prosocial to a Black target. The race of the needy experimenter influenced children's instrumental helping and emotional arousal in a feigned injury task, but did not influence their sharing behavior. Contrary to our hypothesis, though, the older toddlers expressed more empathic distress and arousal to the Black experimenter's feigned injury than to a White experimenter's feigned injury. Implications for theory and research aimed at understanding discriminatory prosocial behaviors between young children are discussed.

show abstract

“…One mechanism through which such understanding may develop is parental discourse about emotion and interactions with social partners (Carpendale & Lewis, 2004;Dunn, Bretherton, & Munn, 1987). Caregiver discussion of emotion is associated with children's prosocial behavior (Drummond, Paul, Waugh, Hammond, & Brownell, 2014;Laible & Karahuta, 2014) and may be particularly important for highlighting specific aspects relating to emotional contexts (Knothe & Walle, 2018). Parents may emphasize specific helping strategies at different points in development and provide cues about how such behaviors should be directed as a function of another person's emotion.…”

Section: Considerations For Understanding the How When And Why Ofmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effect of emotional communication on infants' distinct prosocial behaviors

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Discrete emotions convey distinct relational meanings that inform the response of a social partner, such as how to help. Although prosocial behaviors can take different forms and are observed in a variety of contexts across development, distinct forms of helping are often studied in forced-choice settings in limited emotional contexts. This study examined the prevalence of three prosocial behaviors (instrumental helping, comforting, and indirect helping) by 16-, 19-, and 24-month-old infants in response to situations involving an experimenter reacting emotionally (anger, disgust, fear, sadness, and joy) to an event (a broken toy; an unknown object). Instrumental helping was more prevalent in response to sadness than fear, anger, disgust, and joy, with instrumental helping in joy contexts emerging at 24 months. Conversely, comforting was largely absent in joy and disgust contexts in comparison to the other emotional contexts and increased overall with age. Indirect helping was rarely observed in response to disgust and joy and was most frequent in response to sadness. Furthermore, both 24-and 19-month-olds were more likely to engage in indirect helping compared with 16-month-olds. This study supports the view that infant prosocial behavior is influenced by emotional cues and that distinct forms of helping emerge gradually in infancy.

show abstract

Prosocial Behaviors in Early Childhood

Cited by 18 publications

References 0 publications

Parenting and prosocial behaviors: A meta‐analysis

Parenting and prosocial behaviors: A meta‐analysis

Toddlers’ helping, sharing, and empathic distress: Does the race of the target matter?

The effect of emotional communication on infants' distinct prosocial behaviors

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About