Prosocial Behavior

As noted earlier, moral behavior is as important for moral development as are moral thinking and moral emotions. The same is true for prosocial behavior; all children are capable of prosocial behaviors, but children differ in how often they engage in these behaviors and in their reasons for doing so. Consider the behavior of the following three preschool children:

In their second year, most children are willing to share objects and treats with their parents and with other children.

HOWARD SAYER/ALAMY

Seeing that someone else is sad or in distress, Sara gladly shares without even being asked. Marc shares only if asked repeatedly. Sakina doesn’t share at all and does not seem to care if other children are upset. Do these differences in behavior forecast consistent differences in Sara’s, Marc’s, and Sakina’s positive moral behavior as they are growing up?

The answer is yes: there is some developmental consistency in children’s readiness to engage in prosocial behaviors, such as sharing, helping, and comforting (N. Eisenberg & Fabes, 1998; Knafo et al., 2008). In fact, children who, like Sara, share spontaneously with peers tend to be more concerned with others’ needs throughout childhood and adolescence and even in early adulthood. One longitudinal study found that, in comparison with their peers, for example, they were more likely to assist other people even when doing so involved a cost to themselves. As young adults, they reported that they felt responsible for the welfare of others and that they usually tried to suppress aggression toward others when angered. This view of themselves was supported by friends, who rated them as more sympathetic than study participants who engaged in less spontaneous prosocial behavior in preschool (N. Eisenberg et al., 2002; N. Eisenberg, Guthrie et al., 1999). In contrast, children like Sakina are unlikely to be concerned with others’ needs and feelings when they are older.

Of course, not all prosocial behaviors are of equal worth. Sometimes children help or share to get something in return, to gain social acceptance from peers, or to avoid their anger (“I’ll share my doll if you’ll be my friend”). However, most parents and teachers want children to perform prosocial behaviors not for rewards or social approval but for altruistic motives. Altruistic motives initially include empathy or sympathy for others and, at later ages, the desire to act in ways consistent with one’s own conscience and moral principles (N. Eisenberg, 1986).

The Development of Prosocial Behavior

Children’s ability to sympathize with others appears to increase with age in early and middle childhood. These boys have just participated in a head-shaving event to show support for children with cancer and to help raise funds for cancer research.

RINGO CHIU/CORBIS

The origins of altruistic prosocial behavior are rooted in the capacity to feel empathy and sympathy. As discussed in Chapter 10, empathy is an emotional reaction to another’s emotional state or condition (e.g., sadness, poverty) that is highly similar to (or consistent with) the other person’s state or condition (N. Eisenberg, 1986; M. L. Hoffman, 2000). For example, if a child becomes sad upon observing another person’s sadness or pain, the child is experiencing empathy. To experience empathy, children must be able to identify the emotions of others (at least to some degree) and understand that another person is feeling an emotion or is in some kind of need.

Sympathy is a feeling of concern for another in reaction to the other’s emotional state or condition. Although sympathy often is an outcome of empathizing with another’s negative emotion or negative situation, what distinguishes sympathy from empathy is the element of concern: people who experience sympathy for another person are not merely feeling the same emotion as the other person.

An important factor contributing to empathy or sympathy is, obviously, the ability to take the perspective of others. Although early theorists such as Piaget believed that children are unable to do this until age 6 to 7 (Piaget & Inhelder, 1956/1977), it is now clear that children have some ability to understand others’ perspectives much earlier (Vaish, Carpenter, & Tomasello, 2009). By 10 to 14 months of age, and occasionally between age 8 and 12 months, children sometimes become disturbed and upset when they view other people who are upset (Knafo et al., 2008; Roth-Hanania et al., 2011).

Young children who view another child’s distress sometimes respond with looks of concern or attempts to console or help the distressed peer—about 20% of the time in a study of 16- to 33-month-olds (C. Howes & Farver, 1987). Even young infants sometimes show interest in a peer’s distress.

ELIZABETH CREWS
ANDY COX/GETTY IMAGES

Of course, it may be that infants are not really sympathizing with others’ distress; they may become upset merely because they do not differentiate clearly between another person’s emotional distress and their own (M. L. Hoffman, 2000). Indeed, young children sometimes seek comfort from a parent when they see someone else upset or are upset both for another person and for themselves (Zahn-Waxler, Radke-Yarrow, & King, 1979).

By 18 to 25 months of age, toddlers in laboratory studies sometimes share a personal object with an adult whom they have viewed being harmed by another (for example, by having a piece of personal property taken away or destroyed). They also will sometimes comfort an adult who appears to be injured or distressed, or help an adult retrieve a dropped object or obtain food (Dunfield et al., 2011; Vaish et al., 2009). Such behaviors are especially likely to occur if the adult explicitly and emotionally communicates his or her need (C. A. Brownell, Svetlova, & Nichols, 2009), but they sometimes occur even when the adult does not express an emotional reaction (Vaish et al., 2009). (It should be noted that in studies like these, toddlers are particularly likely to help adults achieve a task or goal, like retrieving a dropped object [Warneken & Tomasello, 2006], but much less likely to share one of their own objects [Svetlova, Nichols, & Brownell, 2010].) In displaying empathy, children in the second year of life also are more likely to try to comfort someone who is upset than to become upset themselves, indicating that they know who it is that is suffering. Consider the following example:

In the second and third years of life, the frequency and variety of young children’s prosocial behaviors increase. Children not only increasingly comfort others (see Table 14.3) and share objects but also assist adults with various tasks such as sweeping, carrying objects, or setting the table (Rheingold, 1982; Warneken, Chen, & Tomasello, 2006). Moreover, their prosocial behaviors at home often seem to be motivated by concern for others because they frequently show expressions of sympathy when they help or comfort others (Knafo et al., 2008; Radke-Yarrow & Zahn-Waxler, 1984). As shown in Table 14.3, 25% of 23- to 25-month-olds showed concern when they observed someone in distress that they had not caused themselves.

Children display helping behaviors at home, often with chores, from an early age.

JACKY CHAPMAN/ALAMY

As should be clear from the table, however, young children do not regularly act in prosocial ways (S. Lamb & Zakhireh, 1997). Between the ages of 2 and 3, children most often ignore their siblings’ distress or need, or they simply watch without intervening. Occasionally, they even make the situation worse with teasing or aggression (Dunn, 1988; see “Aggressive behavior” in Table 14.3). In one study of children in a playgroup setting, for instance, 16- to 33-month-olds responded to peers’ distress only 22% of the time, usually by attempting to intervene on the peer’s behalf, comforting the peer, or bringing the peer’s distress to the attention of the caregiver (C. Howes & Farver, 1987). Consistent with our discussion in Chapter 13, these children were much more likely to help a friend than to help a child who was not a friend (N. Eisenberg, Fabes, & Spinrad, 2006; Fujisawa, Kutsukake, & Hasegawa, 2008).

Children’s prosocial behaviors such as helping, sharing, and donating increase in frequency in the toddler years and from the preschool years through childhood (N. Eisenberg & Fabes, 1998; Knafo et al., 2008). However, prosocial behavior seems to stabilize or even decline in early to mid-adolescence and rebounds somewhat in late adolescence and early adulthood (Carlo et al., 2007; N. Eisenberg et al., 2005; Luengo Kanacri et al., 2013; Nantel-Vivier et al., 2009).

The Origins of Individual Differences in Prosocial Behavior

Although children’s prosocial behaviors change with age, consistent with the theme of individual differences, there is great variation among children of the same age in their propensity to help, share with, and comfort others. Recall the behaviors of Sara, Marc, and Sakina, the three children described earlier in this section. Why do children of the same ages differ so much in their prosocial behavior? To identify the origins of these individual differences, we must consider the themes of nature and nurture and sociocultural context.

Biological Factors

Many biologists and psychologists have proposed that humans are biologically predisposed to be prosocial (Hastings, Zahn-Waxler, & McShane, 2005). They believe that humans have evolved the capacity for empathy and altruism because these traits increase the likelihood of an individual’s genes being passed on to the next generation (M. L. Hoffman, 1981). According to this view, people who help others are more likely than less helpful people to be assisted when they themselves are in need and, thus, are more likely to survive and reproduce (Trivers, 1983). In addition, assisting those with whom they share genes increases the likelihood that those genes will be passed on to the next generation (E. O. Wilson, 1975). Evolutionary explanations for prosocial behavior, however, pertain to the human species as a whole and do not explain individual differences in empathy, sympathy, and prosocial behavior.

Nonetheless, genetic factors do contribute to individual differences in these characteristics (e.g., Waldman et al., 2011). In twin studies with adults, twins’ reports of their own empathy and prosocial behavior are considerably more similar for identical twins than for fraternal twins (Gregory et al., 2009; Knafo & Israel, 2010). In one of the few twin studies of children’s prosocial behavior, researchers observed young twins’ reactions to adults’ simulations of distress in the home and in the laboratory. They also had the twins’ mothers report on their everyday prosocial behavior. On the basis of heritability estimates derived from this study, it appears that the role that genetic factors play in the children’s prosocial concern for others and in their prosocial behavior increases with age (Knafo et al., 2008).

Children are more likely to donate to charity if they see others donate and if adults explain to them how donating helps others.

CHRIS ANDERSON/AURORA

Recently, researchers have identified specific genes that might contribute to individual differences in prosocial tendencies (Knafo & Israel, 2010). For example, certain genes are associated with individual differences in oxytocin, a hormone that plays a role in a variety of social behaviors and emotion, including pair bonding and parenting, and has been associated with parental attachment, empathy, and prosocial behavior (N Eisenberg, Spinrad, & Knafo, under revision; R. Feldman, 2012; K. MacDonald & MacDonald, 2010; Striepens et al., 2011).

How else might genetic factors affect empathy, sympathy, and prosocial behavior? Most likely, their effects are related to differences in temperament. For instance, differences in children’s ability to regulate emotion are related to children’s empathy and sympathy. Children who tend to experience emotion without getting overwhelmed by it are especially likely to experience sympathy and to enact prosocial behavior (N. Eisenberg, Fabes, & Murphy, 1996; N. Eisenberg et al., 2007; Trommsdorff, Friedlmeier, & Mayer, 2007). Moreover, children who are not responsive to others’ emotions or are too inhibited to help others may be relatively unlikely to enact prosocial behaviors (Liew et al., 2011; S. K. Young, Fox, & Zahn-Waxler, 1999). Regulation is also related to children’s theory of mind (see page 267), and theory of mind predicts children’s prosocial behavior (Caputi et al., 2012). Thus, the effect of heredity on sympathy and prosocial behavior might be through individual differences in their social cognition. It seems, then, that genetic factors likely affect when and how children assist others through their effect on a number of different aspects of children’s functioning.

The Socialization of Prosocial Behavior

A number of environmental factors also contribute to sympathy and prosocial behavior (Knafo & Plomin, 2006a, 2006b; Volbrecht et al., 2007). The primary environmental influence on children’s development of prosocial behavior probably is their socialization in the family. Researchers have identified three ways in which parents socialize prosocial behavior in their children: (1) through their modeling and teaching prosocial behavior; (2) through their arranging opportunities for their children to engage in prosocial behavior; and (3) through their methods of disciplining their children and eliciting prosocial behavior from them. Parents also communicate and reinforce cultural beliefs about the value of prosocial behavior (see Box 14.1).

Box 14.1: a closer look: CULTURAL CONTRIBUTIONS TO CHILDREN’S PROSOCIAL AND ANTISOCIAL TENDENCIES

The amount of prosocial and antisocial behavior that children display can be influenced by the particular culture they are part of (Graves & Graves, 1983; Turnbull, 1972). For example, children from traditional communities and subcultures (e.g., Mexicans and Mexican Americans) are more likely to cooperate on laboratory tasks than are children from urban, Westernized groups (N. Eisenberg & Mussen, 1989; Knight, Cota, & Bernal, 1993). Similar patterns have been found in observations of children interacting at home and in their neighborhoods (Whiting & Edwards, 1988; Whiting & Whiting, 1975): children in traditional societies in Kenya, Mexico, and the Philippines helped, shared, and offered support to others in their families and communities more than did children in the United States, India, and Okinawa. In the more prosocial cultures, children often lived in extended families with many relatives. At a young age, they were assigned chores that were very important for the welfare of other family members, such as caring for younger children and tending herds. As a result of taking on these duties, children may have learned that they were responsible for others and that their helping behavior was expected and valued by adults.

Cross-cultural research has shown that girls who live in societies in which they are expected to take care of younger children are more prosocial than are girls who live in societies that do not have this expectation.

CATHERINE URSILLO/SCIENCE SOURCE

However, there may be cultural differences in the people toward whom children’s caring behavior is directed. For example, in the research just discussed, Philippine children were more prosocial toward relatives than toward nonrelatives, whereas U.S. children were more prosocial toward nonrelatives than toward relatives (de Guzman, Carlo, & Edwards, 2008). Children in traditional cultures may be socialized to help people with whom they have close ties but may be relatively disinclined to help people with whom they don’t have a close connection.

The multicultural study cited above also revealed cultural differences in children’s aggression (Whiting & Whiting, 1975). Children’s tendencies to assault, berate, and scold others were related primarily to family structure and interactions among parents. Children with lower rates of assaulting and reprimanding tended to live in cultures in which fathers were closely involved with their wives and children, helped their wives with the care of infants, and were relatively unlikely to assault their wives. In such family circumstances, children may have learned nonaggressive modes of social interaction from their fathers and were relatively unlikely to have been exposed to aggressive adult models.

Even in various industrial societies today, there are differences in cultural values regarding prosocial and antisocial behavior. For instance, Mexican American youths are more prosocial if they espouse the traditional Mexican value of familism—a set of norms that promotes emotional and economic interdependence within an extended network of kin—rather than mainstream U.S. norms of individualism (Armenta et al., 2011). Along similar lines, the incidence of children’s sharing, helping, and comforting is higher in Taiwan and Japan than it is in the United States (Rao & Stewart, 1999; Stevenson, 1991). Again, in contrast to the U.S. valuing of self and competition, Chinese and Japanese cultures traditionally place great emphasis on teaching children to share and to be responsible for the needs of others in the group (the family, class, or community). In Japan, there also is an emphasis on creating a “community of learners” in the elementary school classroom—that is, teaching children to respond supportively to one another’s thoughts and feelings (M. Lewis, 1995). However, the traditional emphasis on prosocial behavior in many Asian cultures seems to be eroding (L. C. Lee & Zhan, 1991), perhaps due to increasing economic modernization and exposure to Western culture and values. This may explain why Asian children have not been found to be more prosocial than Western children in several relatively recent studies outside the classroom (Kärtner, Keller, & Chaudhary, 2010; Trommsdorff et al., 2007).

Modeling and the communication of values Just as they imitate many other behaviors, children tend to imitate other people’s helping and sharing behavior, including even that of unknown peers or adults (N. Eisenberg & Fabes, 1998). Children are especially likely to imitate the prosocial behavior of adults with whom they have a positive relationship (D. Hart & Fegley, 1995; Yarrow, Scott, & Zahn-Waxler, 1973). This may help explain the fact that parents and children tend to be similar in their levels of prosocial behavior and sympathy (Clary & Miller, 1986; N. Eisenberg et al., 1991; Stukas et al., 1999), although heredity may also contribute to the similarity between parent and child in sympathy and helpfulness.

In a particularly interesting study, individuals who had risked their lives to rescue Jews from the Nazis in Europe during World War II were interviewed many years later, along with “bystanders” from the same communities who had not been involved in rescue activities (Oliner & Oliner, 1988). As shown in Table 14.4, when recalling the values that they had learned from their parents and other influential adults, 44% of the rescuers mentioned generosity and caring for others, whereas only 21% of bystanders mentioned the same values. In addition, bystanders were almost twice as likely as rescuers to cite economic competence as a value learned from their parents.

Bystanders also reported that their parents emphasized ethical obligations to family, community, church, and country, but not to other groups of people. In contrast, rescuers were seven times more likely than bystanders to report that their parents taught them that values related to caring should be applied to everyone (28% of rescuers; 4% of bystanders):

Thus, the values parents convey to their children may influence not only whether children are prosocial but also toward whom they are prosocial.

One effective way for parents to teach their children prosocial values and behaviors is to have discussions with them that appeal to their ability to sympathize. In laboratory studies, when elementary school children heard adults explicitly point out the positive consequences of prosocial actions for others (e.g., “Poor children…would be so happy and excited if they could buy food and toys”), they were relatively likely to donate money anonymously to help other people (Eisenberg-Berg & Geisheker, 1979; Perry, Bussey, & Freiberg, 1981). Children were less likely to donate anonymously if adults simply said that helping is “good” or “nice” and did not provide sympathy-arousing rationales for helping or sharing (Bryan & Walbek, 1970; N. Eisenberg & Fabes, 1998).

Opportunities for prosocial activities Providing children with opportunities to engage in helpful activities can increase their willingness to take on prosocial tasks at a later time (N. Eisenberg et al., 1987; Staub, 1979). In the home, opportunities to help others include household tasks that are performed on a routine basis and benefit others (Richman et al., 1988; Whiting & Whiting, 1975), although performance of household tasks may foster prosocial actions primarily toward family members (Grusec, Goodnow, & Cohen, 1996). For adolescents, voluntary community service such as working in homeless shelters or other community agencies also can be a way of gaining experience in helping others and deepening feelings of prosocial commitment (M. K. Johnson et al., 1998; Lawford et al., 2005; Pratt et al., 2003; Yates & Youniss, 1996).

Participation in prosocial activities may also provide opportunities for children and adolescents to take others’ perspectives, to increase their confidence that they are competent to assist others, and to experience emotional rewards for helping. Even mandatory school-based service activities have been associated with future prosocial values (D. Hart et al., 2007), as well as with increased voluntary service at a later date for those high school youths who were not initially inclined to engage in such activities (Metz & Youniss, 2003). It should be noted, however, that forcing older adolescents or young adults into service activities can sometimes backfire and undermine their motivation to help (Stukas, Snyder, & Clary, 1999).

Discipline and parenting style High levels of prosocial behavior and sympathy in children tend to be associated with constructive and supportive parenting, including authoritative parenting (Day & Padilla-Walker, 2009; Knafo & Plomin, 2006a; Michalik et al., 2007). When parents are involved with and close to their children, children are higher in sympathy and regulation, which in turn predicts higher levels of prosocial behavior (Padilla-Walker & Christensen, 2011). Parental support of, and attachment to, the child have been found to be especially predictive of prosocial behavior for youths who are low in fearfulness (Padilla-Walker & Nelson, 2010). It is important to note, however, that not only might supportive, authoritative parenting promote sympathy and prosocial behavior, but prosocial, sympathetic children might also elicit more support from their parents (Miklikowska, Duriez, & Soenens 2011; Padilla-Walker et al., 2012). In contrast, a parenting style that involves physical punishment, threats, and an authoritarian approach (see Chapter 12) tends to be associated with a lack of sympathy and prosocial behavior in children (Asbury et al., 2003; Hastings et al., 2000; Krevans & Gibbs, 1996; Laible et al., 2008).

The way in which parents attempt to directly elicit prosocial behavior from their children is also important. If children are regularly punished for failing to engage in prosocial behavior, they may start to believe that the reason for helping others is primarily to avoid punishment (Dix & Grusec, 1983; M. L. Hoffman, 1983). Similarly, if children are given material rewards for prosocial behaviors, they may come to believe that they helped solely for the rewards and, thus, may be less motivated to help when no rewards are offered (Fabes et al., 1989; Warneken & Tomasello, 2008).

When adults point out the consequences of a child’s transgressions for others, children are more likely to respond with sympathy and prosocial behavior in other situations (N. Eisenberg & Fabes, 1998; Krevans & Gibbs, 1996).

SUSIE FITZHUGH

What does seem particularly likely to foster children’s voluntary prosocial behavior is discipline that involves reasoning (Carlo, Mestre et al., 2010). This is especially true when the reasoning points out the consequences of the child’s behavior for others (Krevans & Gibbs, 1996), encourages perspective taking (B. M. Farrant et al., 2012), and is used by parents who generally are warm and supportive (M. L. Hoffman, 1963). Such reasoning also encourages sympathy with others and provides guidelines children can refer to in future situations (C. S. Henry, Sager, & Plunkett, 1996; M. L. Hoffman, 1983). Maternal use of reasoning (e.g., “Can’t you see that Tim is hurt?”) seems to increase prosocial behavior even for 1- to 2-year-olds, as long as mothers state their reasoning in an emotional tone of voice (Zahn-Waxler et al., 1979). Emotion in the mother’s voice likely catches her toddler’s attention and communicates that she is very serious about what she is saying.

The combination of parental warmth and certain parenting practices—not parental warmth by itself—seems to be especially effective for fostering prosocial tendencies in children. Thus, children tend to be more prosocial when their parents are not only warm and supportive but also model prosocial behavior, include reasoning and references to moral values and responsibilities in their discipline, and expose their children to prosocial models and activities (i.e., use authoritative parenting; Hastings et al., 2007; Janssens & Dekovic, 1997; Yarrow et al., 1973).

Because most of the research on the socialization of prosocial responding is correlational in design, it does not allow firm conclusions about cause-and-effect relations. However, some school interventions have been effective at promoting prosocial behavior in children, so environmental factors must contribute to its development (see Box 14.2). The research underlying such interventions indicates that experience in helping and cooperating with others, exposure to prosocial values and behaviors, and adults’ use of reasoning in discipline jointly contribute to the development of prosocial behavior.