Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T18:44:05.843Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

11 - The Motives of Prosocial Behavior

from Part II - Antecedents and Mechanisms of Prosociality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 May 2023

By
Joscha Kärtner
Edited by
Tina Malti  and
Maayan Davidov
Tina Malti
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
Maayan Davidov
Affiliation:
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Get access

Summary

This chapter describes the development of prosocial motives and the social contexts within which these motives emerge and differentiate. Initially, prosocial behavior is based on a blend of motives, namely, participating in social interaction and early forms of feeling for others. During early childhood, concern-based guilt emerges and mere participation transforms into contributing to collaborative activities. During childhood, the normative turn complements these motives by a sense of obligation (living up to), and, during adolescence, aspiring to one’s ideal self can become an important prosocial motive. In this sense, doing good often is an expression of central human motives, namely, belonging to others, feeling for others, contributing to joint endeavors, affirming a sense of responsibility and normative obligation, and striving for our ideal selves.

Keywords

prosocial behaviorempathic concernsocial interactionparticipationcontributionguiltnormsobligationresponsibilitymoral self
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Prosociality
Development, Mechanisms, Promotion
 , pp. 209 - 232
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abramson, L., Paz, Y., & Knafo‐Noam, A. (2019). From negative reactivity to empathic responding: Infants high in negative reactivity express more empathy later in development, with the help of regulation. Developmental Science, 22(3). https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12766Google Scholar
Aknin, L. B., Broesch, T., Hamlin, J. K., & Van de Vondervoort, J. W. (2015). Prosocial behavior leads to happiness in a small-scale rural society. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 144(4), 788–795. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000082CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aknin, L. B., Hamlin, J. K., & Dunn, E. W. (2012). Giving leads to happiness in young children. PLoS ONE, 7(6), e39211. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0039211Google Scholar
Alcalá, L., Rogoff, B., Mejía-Arauz, R., Coppens, A. D., & Dexter, A. L. (2014). Children’s initiative in contributions to family work in Indigenous-heritage and cosmopolitan communities in Mexico. Human Development, 57(2–3), 96–115. https://doi.org/10.1159/000356763Google Scholar
Batson, C. D., & Powell, A. A. (2003). Altruism and prosocial behavior. In Handbook of psychology: Personality and social psychology (Vol. 5, pp. 463–484). John Wiley & Sons. https://doi.org/10.1002/0471264385.wei0519CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baumeister, R. F., & Leary, M. R. (1995). The need to belong: Desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation. Psychological Bulletin, 117(3), 497–529. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.117.3.497Google Scholar
Bischof-Köhler, D. (1989). Spiegelbild und Empathie. Die Anfänge der sozialen Kognition. Huber.Google Scholar
Bischof-Köhler, D. (2012). Empathy and self-recognition in phylogenetic and ontogenetic perspective. Emotion Review, 4(1), 40–48. https://doi.org/10.1177/1754073911421377CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blasi, A. (2004). Moral functioning: Moral understanding and personality. In Moral development, self, and identity (pp. 335–347). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Buchtel, E. E., Ng, L. C. Y., Norenzayan, A., Heine, S. J., Biesanz, J. C., Chen, S. X., Bond, M. H., Peng, Q., & Su, Y. (2018). A sense of obligation: Cultural differences in the experience of obligation. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 44(11), 1545–1566. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167218769610Google Scholar
Carpendale, J. I. M., Hammond, S. I., & Atwood, S. (2013). A relational developmental systems approach to moral development. In Advances in Child Development and Behavior (Vol. 45, pp. 125–153). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-397946-9.00006-3Google Scholar
Carpendale, J. I. M., Kettner, V. A., & Audet, K. N. (2015). On the nature of toddlers’ helping: Helping or interest in others’ activity? Social Development, 24(2), 357–366. https://doi.org/10.1111/sode.12094Google Scholar
Carpenter, M., Uebel, J., & Tomasello, M. (2013). Being mimicked increases prosocial behavior in 18-month-old infants. Child Development, 84(5), 1511–1518. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12083CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chartrand, T. L., & Lakin, J. L. (2013). The antecedents and consequences of human behavioral mimicry. Annual Review of Psychology, 64(1), 285–308. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-113011-143754CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cirelli, L. K. (2018). How interpersonal synchrony facilitates early prosocial behavior. Current Opinion in Psychology, 20, 35–39. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2017.08.009CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Coppens, A. D., & Alcalá, L. (2015). Supporting children’s initiative. In Advances in Child Development and Behavior (Vol. 49, pp. 91–112). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.acdb.2015.10.002Google Scholar
Coppens, A. D., Alcalá, L., Rogoff, B., & Mejía-Arauz, R. (2016). Children’s contributions in family work: Two cultural paradigms. In Punch, S., Vanderbeck, R., & Skelton, T. (Eds.), Families, intergenerationality, and peer group relations (pp. 1–27). Springer Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-4585-92-7_11-1Google Scholar
Cortes Barragan, R., & Dweck, C. S. (2014). Rethinking natural altruism: Simple reciprocal interactions trigger children’s benevolence. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 111(48), 17071–17074. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1419408111Google Scholar
Dahl, A. (2015). The developing social context of infant helping in two U.S. samples. Child Development, 86(4), 1080–1093. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12361Google Scholar
Dahl, A., & Paulus, M. (2019). From interest to obligation: The gradual development of human altruism. Child Development Perspectives, 13(1), 10–14. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdep.12298Google Scholar
Davidov, M., Paz, Y., Roth‐Hanania, R., Uzefovsky, F., Orlitsky, T., Mankuta, D., & Zahn‐Waxler, C. (2020). Caring babies: Concern for others in distress during infancy. Developmental Science. https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.13016Google Scholar
Davidov, M., Zahn-Waxler, C., Roth-Hanania, R., & Knafo, A. (2013). Concern for others in the first year of life: Theory, evidence, and avenues for research. Child Development Perspectives, 7(2), 126–131. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdep.12028CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Guzman, M., Rosario, T., Do, K. A., & Kok, C. M. (2014). The cultural contexts of children’s prosocial behaviors. In Padilla-Walker, L. M. & Carlo, G. (Eds.), Prosocial development: A multidimensional approach (Vol. 1, pp. 221–241). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199964772.003.0011CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Demetriou, H., & Hay, D. F. (2004). Toddlers’ reactions to the distress of familiar peers: The importance of context. Infancy, 6(2), 299–318. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327078in0602_9Google Scholar
Drummond, J. D. K., Hammond, S. I., Satlof-Bedrick, E., Waugh, W. E., & Brownell, C. A. (2017). Helping the one you hurt: Toddlers’ rudimentary guilt, shame, and prosocial behavior after harming another. Child Development, 88(4), 1382–1397. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12653Google Scholar
Dunham, Y. (2018). Mere membership. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 22(9), 780–793. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2018.06.004Google Scholar
Eisenberg, N., Spinrad, T. L., & Knafo-Noam, A. (2015). Prosocial development. In Lamb, M. E. & Lerner, R. M. (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology and developmental science: Socioemotional processes (7th ed., Vol. 3, pp. 610–656). John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Erikson, E. H. (1968). Identity: Youth and crisis. Norton.Google Scholar
Fehr, E., Bernhard, H., & Rockenbach, B. (2008). Egalitarianism in young children. Nature, 454(7208), 1079–1083. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature07155Google Scholar
Frimer, J. A., & Walker, L. J. (2009). Reconciling the self and morality: An empirical model of moral centrality development. Developmental Psychology, 45(6), 1669–1681. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0017418Google Scholar
Giner Torréns, M., & Kärtner, J. (2017). The influence of socialization on early helping from a cross-cultural perspective. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 48(3), 353–368. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022022117690451CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giner Torréns, M., & Kärtner, J. (2019). Affiliation motivates children’s prosocial behaviors: Relating helping and comforting to imitation. Social Development, 28(3), 501–513. https://doi.org/10.1111/sode.12357CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gottlieb, G. (2007). Probabilistic epigenesis. Developmental Science, 10(1), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2007.00556.xCrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Goyal, N., Wice, M., Aladro, A., Kallberg-Shroff, M., & Miller, J. G. (2019). Culture and the development of views of agency: Perspectives from storybooks, parents, and children. Developmental Psychology, 55(5), 1096–1110. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0000671Google Scholar
Gräfenhain, M., Behne, T., Carpenter, M., & Tomasello, M. (2009). Young children’s understanding of joint commitments. Developmental Psychology, 45(5), 1430–1443. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0016122Google Scholar
Gräfenhain, M., Carpenter, M., & Tomasello, M. (2013). Three-year-olds’ understanding of the consequences of joint commitments. PLoS ONE, 8(9), e73039. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0073039Google Scholar
Graves, N. B., & Graves, T. D. (1983). The cultural context of prosocial development: An ecological model. In Bridgeman, D. L. (Ed.), The nature of prosocial development: Interdisciplinary theories and strategies (pp. 243–264). Academic Press.Google Scholar
Grossmann, T., Missana, M., & Krol, K. M. (2018). The neurodevelopmental precursors of altruistic behavior in infancy. PLoS Biology, 16(9), e2005281. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.2005281Google Scholar
Hamann, K., Warneken, F., Greenberg, J. R., & Tomasello, M. (2011). Collaboration encourages equal sharing in children but not in chimpanzees. Nature, 476(7360), 328–331. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature10278Google Scholar
Hamann, K., Warneken, F., & Tomasello, M. (2012). Children’s developing commitments to joint goals. Child Development, 83(1), 137–145. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2011.01695.xGoogle Scholar
Hardy, S. A., & Carlo, G. (2011). Moral identity: What is it, how does it develop, and is it linked to moral action? Moral identity development. Child Development Perspectives, 5(3), 212–218. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1750-8606.2011.00189.xGoogle Scholar
Hardy, S. A., Walker, L. J., Olsen, J. A., Woodbury, R. D., & Hickman, J. R. (2014). Moral identity as moral ideal self: Links to adolescent outcomes. Developmental Psychology, 50(1), 45–57. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0033598Google Scholar
Haun, D. B. M., Rekers, Y., & Tomasello, M. (2012). Majority-biased transmission in chimpanzees and human children, but not orangutans. Current Biology, 22(8), 727–731. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2012.03.006Google Scholar
Hay, D. F., Nash, A., & Pedersen, J. (1981). Responses of six-month-olds to the distress of their peers. Child Development, 52(3), 1071. https://doi.org/10.2307/1129114Google Scholar
Hepach, R. (2017). Prosocial arousal in children. Child Development Perspectives, 11(1), 50–55. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdep.12209Google Scholar
Hepach, R., Vaish, A., Müller, K., & Tomasello, M. (2019). The relation between young children’s physiological arousal and their motivation to help others. Neuropsychologia, 126, 113–119. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2017.10.010CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hepach, R., Vaish, A., & Tomasello, M. (2017). Children’s intrinsic motivation to provide help themselves after accidentally harming others. Child Development, 88(4), 1251–1264. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12646Google Scholar
Hoffman, M. L. (1982). Development of prosocial motivation: Empathy and guilt. In Development of prosocial behavior (pp. 281–313). Academic Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoffman, M. L. (2000). Empathy and moral development: Implications for caring and justice. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511805851CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hogan, R. (1996). A socioanalytic perspective on the five-factor model. In The five-factor model of personality: Theoretical perspectives (pp. 163–179). Guilford Press.Google Scholar
House, B. R., Silk, J. B., Henrich, J., Barrett, H. C., Scelza, B. A., Boyette, A. H., Hewlett, B. S., McElreath, R., & Laurence, S. (2013). Ontogeny of prosocial behavior across diverse societies. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110(36), 14586–14591. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1221217110Google Scholar
House, B. R., & Tomasello, M. (2018). Modeling social norms increasingly influences costly sharing in middle childhood. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 171, 84–98. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2017.12.014Google Scholar
Johnson, D. B. (1982). Altruistic behavior and the development of the self in infants. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 28(3), 379–388.Google Scholar
Kärtner, J. (2018). Beyond dichotomies: (M)others’ structuring and the development of toddlers’ prosocial behavior across cultures. Current Opinion in Psychology, 20, 6–10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2017.07.040Google Scholar
Kärtner, J., Giner Torréns, M., & Schuhmacher, N. (2021). Parental structuring during shared chores and the development of helping across the second year. Social Development, 30(2), 374–395. https://doi.org/10.1111/sode.12490Google Scholar
Kärtner, J., Keller, H., & Chaudhary, N. (2010). Cognitive and social influences on early prosocial behavior in two sociocultural contexts. Developmental Psychology, 46(4), 905–914. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0019718Google Scholar
Kärtner, J., Schuhmacher, N., & Giner Torréns, M. (2020). Culture and early social-cognitive development. In Progress in brain research (Vol. 254, pp. 225–246). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.pbr.2020.06.011Google Scholar
Keller, H., & Kärtner, J. (2013). Development: The cultural solution of universal developmental tasks. In Gelfand, M. J., Chiu, C., & Hong, Y. (Eds.), Advances in culture and psychology (Vol. 3, pp. 63–116). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199930449.003.0002CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kirschner, S., & Tomasello, M. (2010). Joint music making promotes prosocial behavior in 4-year-old children. Evolution and Human Behavior, 31(5), 354–364. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2010.04.004CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kochanska, G. (2002). Mutually responsive orientation between mothers and their young children: A context for the early development of conscience. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 11(6), 191–195. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8721.00198Google Scholar
Kochanska, G., Coy, K. C., & Murray, K. T. (2001). The development of self-regulation in the first four years of life. Child Development, 72(4), 1091–1111. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8624.00336CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kohlberg, L. (1984). The psychology of moral development: The nature and validity of moral stages. Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Köster, M., Cavalcante, L., de Carvalho, R., Resende, B. D., & Kärtner, J. (2016). Cultural influences on toddlers’ prosocial behavior: How maternal task assignment relates to helping others. Child Development, 87(6), 1727–1738. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12636Google Scholar
Köster, M., Itakura, S., Omori, M., & Kärtner, J. (2019). From understanding others’ needs to prosocial action: Motor and social abilities promote infants’ helping. Developmental Science, 22(6). https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12804CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Köster, M., & Kärtner, J. (2019). Why do infants help? A simple action reveals a complex phenomenon. Developmental Review, 51, 175–187. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dr.2018.11.004Google Scholar
Köster, M., Ohmer, X., Nguyen, T. D., & Kärtner, J. (2016). Infants understand others’ needs. Psychological Science, 27(4), 542–548. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797615627426CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lancy, D. F. (2012). The chore curriculum. In Spittler, G. & Bourdillion, M. (Eds.), African children at work: Working and learning in growing up for life (pp. 23–57). Lit Verlag.Google Scholar
Lancy, D. F. (2020). Child helpers: A multidisciplinary perspective. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108769204Google Scholar
Malti, T., & Krettenauer, T. (2013). The relation of moral emotion attributions to prosocial and antisocial behavior: A meta-analysis. Child Development, 84(2), 397–412. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2012.01851.xGoogle Scholar
Marcia, J. E. (1980). Identity in adolescence. In Adelson, J. (Ed.), Handbook of adolescent psychology (pp. 159–187). Wiley.Google Scholar
Miller, J. G., & Bersoff, D. M. (1992). Culture and moral judgment: How are conflicts between justice and interpersonal responsibilities resolved? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 62(4), 541–554. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.62.4.541CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Miller, J. G., Das, R., & Chakravarthy, S. (2011). Culture and the role of choice in agency. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 101(1), 46–61. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0023330Google Scholar
Miller, J. G., Goyal, N., & Wice, M. (2017). A cultural psychology of agency: Morality, motivation, and reciprocity. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 12(5), 867–875. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691617706099CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Misch, A., Over, H., & Carpenter, M. (2014). Stick with your group: Young children’s attitudes about group loyalty. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 126, 19–36. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2014.02.008Google Scholar
Ochs, E., & Izquierdo, C. (2009). Responsibility in childhood: Three developmental trajectories. Ethos, 37(4), 391–413. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1352.2009.01066.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Over, H. (2016). The origins of belonging: Social motivation in infants and young children. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 371(1686), 20150072. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2015.0072Google Scholar
Over, H. (2020). The social function of imitation in development. Annual Review of Developmental Psychology, 2(1), 93–109. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-devpsych-033020-024051Google Scholar
Over, H., & Carpenter, M. (2009). Eighteen-month-old infants show increased helping following priming with affiliation. Psychological Science, 20(10), 1189–1193. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02419.xGoogle Scholar
Over, H., Vaish, A., & Tomasello, M. (2016). Do young children accept responsibility for the negative actions of ingroup members? Cognitive Development, 40, 24–32. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2016.08.004Google Scholar
Overton, W. F. (2013). Relationism and relational developmental systems. In Advances in Child Development and Behavior (Vol. 44, pp. 21–64). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-397947-6.00002-7Google Scholar
Rakoczy, H., & Schmidt, M. F. H. (2013). The early ontogeny of social norms. Child Development Perspectives, 7(1), 17–21. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdep.12010CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reimer, K. S., DeWitt Goudelock, B. M., & Walker, L. J. (2009). Developing conceptions of moral maturity: Traits and identity in adolescent personality. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 4(5), 372–388. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760902992431Google Scholar
Rheingold, H. L. (1982). Little children’s participation in the work of adults, a nascent prosocial behavior. Child Development, 53(1), 114. https://doi.org/10.2307/1129643CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rogoff, B. (2003). The cultural nature of human development. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rogoff, B. (2014). Learning by observing and pitching in to family and community endeavors: An orientation. Human Development, 57(2–3), 69–81. https://doi.org/10.1159/000356757CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roth-Hanania, R., Davidov, M., & Zahn-Waxler, C. (2011). Empathy development from 8 to 16 months: Early signs of concern for others. Infant Behavior and Development, 34(3), 447–458. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infbeh.2011.04.007Google Scholar
Sameroff, A. (2010). A unified theory of development: A dialectic integration of nature and nurture. Child Development, 81(1), 6–22. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2009.01378.xGoogle Scholar
Schmidt, M. F. H., & Tomasello, M. (2012). Young children enforce social norms. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 21(4), 232–236. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721412448659CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwartz, S. H., Cieciuch, J., Vecchione, M., Davidov, E., Fischer, R., Beierlein, C., Ramos, A., Verkasalo, M., Lönnqvist, J.-E., Demirutku, K., Dirilen-Gumus, O., & Konty, M. (2012). Refining the theory of basic individual values. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 103(4), 663–688. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0029393Google Scholar
Schwartz, S. J., Donnellan, M. B., Ravert, R. D., Luyckx, K., & Zamboanga, B. L. (2013). Identity development, personality, and well-being in adolescence and emerging adulthood: Theory, research, and recent advances. In Handbook of psychology: Developmental psychology (2nd ed., Vol. 6, pp. 339–364). John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Stets, J. E., & Burke, P. J. (2000). Identity theory and social identity theory. Social Psychology Quarterly, 63(3), 224–237. https://doi.org/10.2307/2695870Google Scholar
Tangney, J. P., & Dearing, R. L. (2002). Shame and guilt. Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Thompson, R. A. (2020). Cooperation and obligation in early parent-child relationships. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 43, e88. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X19002474Google Scholar
Thompson, R. A., Meyer, S., & McGinley, M. (2006). Understanding values in relationships: The development of conscience. In Handbook of moral development (pp. 267–297). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Tomasello, M. (2020). The moral psychology of obligation. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 43, e56. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X19001742Google Scholar
Trevarthen, C., & Aitken, K. J. (2001). Infant intersubjectivity: Research, theory, and clinical applications. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 42(1), 3–48. https://doi.org/10.1111/1469-7610.00701Google Scholar
Trommsdorff, G., Friedlmeier, W., & Mayer, B. (2007). Sympathy, distress, and prosocial behavior of preschool children in four cultures. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 31(3), 284–293. https://doi.org/10.1177/0165025407076441Google Scholar
Ulber, J., & Tomasello, M. (2020). Young children’s prosocial responses toward peers and adults in two social contexts. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 198, 104888. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2020.104888Google Scholar
Vaish, A., Carpenter, M., & Tomasello, M. (2016). The early emergence of guilt-motivated prosocial behavior. Child Development, 87(6), 1772–1782. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12628Google Scholar
Walker, L. J. (2014). Prosocial exemplarity in adolescence and adulthood. In Padilla-Walker, L. M. & Carlo, G. (Eds.), Prosocial development: A multidimensional approach (pp. 433–453). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199964772.003.0021CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wang, J., & Barrett, K. C. (2013). Mastery motivation and self-regulation during early childhood. In Barrett, K. C., Fox, N. A., Morgan, G. A., Fidler, D. J., & Daunhauer, L. A. (Eds.), Handbook of self-regulatory processes in development: New directions and international perspectives (pp. 337–380). Psychology Press. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203080719.ch15Google Scholar
Warneken, F., Lohse, K., Melis, A. P., & Tomasello, M. (2011). Young children share the spoils after collaboration. Psychological Science, 22(2), 267–273. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797610395392Google Scholar
Warneken, F., & Tomasello, M. (2006). Altruistic helping in human infants and young chimpanzees. Science, 311(5765), 1301–1303. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1121448Google Scholar
Whiting, B. B., & Edwards, C. P. (1988). Learning prosocial behavior. In Children of different worlds: The formation of social behavior (pp. 159–197). Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Whiting, B. B., & Whiting, J. W. M. (1975). Children of six cultures: A psycho-cultural analysis. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Zahn-Waxler, C., Radke-Yarrow, M., & King, R. A. (1979). Child rearing and children’s prosocial initiations toward victims of distress. Child Development, 50(2), 319. https://doi.org/10.2307/1129406CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zahn-Waxler, C., Radke-Yarrow, M., Wagner, E., & Chapman, M. (1992). Development of concern for others. Developmental Psychology, 28(1), 126–136. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.28.1.126Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×