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Brady RG, Leverett SD, Mueller L, Ruscitti M, Latham AR, Smyser TA, Gerstein ED, Warner BB, Barch DM, Luby JL, Rogers CE, Smyser CD. Neighborhood Crime and Externalizing Behavior in Toddlers: A Longitudinal Study With Neonatal fMRI and Parenting. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 2024; 63:733-744. [PMID: 38070869 PMCID: PMC11156792 DOI: 10.1016/j.jaac.2023.09.547] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/27/2023] [Revised: 09/07/2023] [Accepted: 11/30/2023] [Indexed: 12/26/2023]
Abstract
OBJECTIVE Prenatal exposure to neighborhood crime has been associated with weaker neonatal frontolimbic connectivity; however, associations with early childhood behavior remain unclear. We hypothesized that living in a high-crime neighborhood would be related to higher externalizing symptoms at age 1 and 2 years, over and above other adversities, and that neonatal frontolimbic connectivity and observed parenting behaviors at 1 year would mediate this relationship. METHOD Participants included 399 pregnant women, recruited as part of the Early Life Adversity, Biological Embedding, and Risk for Developmental Precursors of Mental Disorders (eLABE) study. Geocoded neighborhood crime data was obtained from Applied Geographic Solution. A total of 319 healthy, non-sedated neonates underwent scanning using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) on a Prisma 3T scanner and had ≥10 minutes of high-quality data. Infant-Toddler Socioemotional Assessment Externalizing T scores were available for 274 mothers of 1-year-olds and 257 mothers of 2-year-olds. Observed parenting behaviors were available for 202 parent-infant dyads at 1 year. Multilevel and mediation models tested longitudinal associations. RESULTS Living in a neighborhood with high violent (β = 0.15, CI = 0.05-0.27, p = .004) and property (β = 0.10, CI = 0.01-0.20, p = .039) crime was related to more externalizing symptoms at 1 and 2 years, controlling for other adversities. Weaker frontolimbic connectivity was also associated with higher externalizing symptoms at 1 and 2 years. After controlling for other adversities, parenting behaviors mediated the specific association between crime and externalizing symptoms, but frontolimbic connectivity did not. CONCLUSION These findings provide evidence that early exposure to neighborhood crime and weaker neonatal frontolimbic connectivity may influence later externalizing symptoms, and suggest that parenting may be an early intervention target for families in high-crime areas. PLAIN LANGUAGE SUMMARY This longitudinal study of 399 women and their children found that toddlers who lived in a high crime area during the first 2 years of their lives displayed more externalizing symptoms. Toddlers with weaker frontolimbic brain function at birth also had higher externalizing symptoms at 1 and 2 years. Interestingly, parenting behaviors, but not neonatal brain function, mediated the relationship between neighborhood crime exposure and externalizing symptoms in toddlerhood. DIVERSITY & INCLUSION STATEMENT We worked to ensure race, ethnic, and/or other types of diversity in the recruitment of human participants. We worked to ensure that the study questionnaires were prepared in an inclusive way. One or more of the authors of this paper self-identifies as a member of one or more historically underrepresented racial and/or ethnic groups in science. One or more of the authors of this paper self-identifies as a member of one or more historically underrepresented sexual and/or gender groups in science. We actively worked to promote sex and gender balance in our author group. We actively worked to promote inclusion of historically underrepresented racial and/or ethnic groups in science in our author group. While citing references scientifically relevant for this work, we also actively worked to promote sex and gender balance in our reference list. While citing references scientifically relevant for this work, we also actively worked to promote inclusion of historically underrepresented racial and/or ethnic groups in science in our reference list. The author list of this paper includes contributors from the location and/or community where the research was conducted who participated in the data collection, design, analysis, and/or interpretation of the work.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rebecca G Brady
- Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri.
| | - Shelby D Leverett
- Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri
| | - Liliana Mueller
- Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri
| | - Michayla Ruscitti
- Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri
| | - Aidan R Latham
- Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri
| | - Tara A Smyser
- Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri
| | | | - Barbara B Warner
- Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri
| | - Deanna M Barch
- Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri; Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri
| | - Joan L Luby
- Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri
| | - Cynthia E Rogers
- Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri
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Kärtner J, Köster M. Early social-cognitive development as a dynamic developmental system-a lifeworld approach. Front Psychol 2024; 15:1399903. [PMID: 38939231 PMCID: PMC11210372 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1399903] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/12/2024] [Accepted: 05/29/2024] [Indexed: 06/29/2024] Open
Abstract
Based on developmental systems and dynamic systems theories, we propose the lifeworld approach-a conceptual framework for research and a hypothesis concerning early social-cognitive development. As a framework, the lifeworld approach recognizes the social embeddedness of development and shifts the focus away from individual developmental outcomes toward the reciprocal interplay of processes within and between individuals that co-constitutes early social-cognitive development. As a hypothesis, the lifeworld approach proposes that the changing developmental system-spanning the different individuals as their subsystems-strives toward attractor states through regulation at the behavioral level, which results in both the emergence and further differentiation of developmental attainments. The lifeworld approach-as a framework and a hypothesis, including key methodological approaches to test it-is exemplified by research on infants' self-awareness, prosocial behavior and social learning. Equipped with, first, a conceptual framework grounded in a modern view on development and, second, a growing suite of methodological approaches, developmental science can advance by analyzing the mutually influential relations between intra-individual and interactional processes in order to identify key mechanisms underlying early social-cognitive development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Joscha Kärtner
- Developmental Psychology Lab, Department of Psychology, University of Münster, Münster, Germany
| | - Moritz Köster
- Developmental Cognitive Psychology, Department of Psychology, University of Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany
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3
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Kopp KS, Kanngiesser P, Brügger RK, Daum MM, Gampe A, Köster M, van Schaik CP, Liebal K, Burkart JM. The proximate regulation of prosocial behaviour: towards a conceptual framework for comparative research. Anim Cogn 2024; 27:5. [PMID: 38429436 PMCID: PMC10907469 DOI: 10.1007/s10071-024-01846-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/07/2023] [Revised: 10/14/2023] [Accepted: 11/13/2023] [Indexed: 03/03/2024]
Abstract
Humans and many other animal species act in ways that benefit others. Such prosocial behaviour has been studied extensively across a range of disciplines over the last decades, but findings to date have led to conflicting conclusions about prosociality across and even within species. Here, we present a conceptual framework to study the proximate regulation of prosocial behaviour in humans, non-human primates and potentially other animals. We build on psychological definitions of prosociality and spell out three key features that need to be in place for behaviour to count as prosocial: benefitting others, intentionality, and voluntariness. We then apply this framework to review observational and experimental studies on sharing behaviour and targeted helping in human children and non-human primates. We show that behaviours that are usually subsumed under the same terminology (e.g. helping) can differ substantially across and within species and that some of them do not fulfil our criteria for prosociality. Our framework allows for precise mapping of prosocial behaviours when retrospectively evaluating studies and offers guidelines for future comparative work.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kathrin S Kopp
- Comparative Cultural Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany.
- Life Sciences, Institute of Biology, Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany.
- Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
| | - Patricia Kanngiesser
- Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany
- School of Psychology, University of Plymouth, Plymouth, UK
| | - Rahel K Brügger
- Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Moritz M Daum
- Department of Psychology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
- Jacobs Center for Productive Youth Development, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
- Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Language Evolution, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Anja Gampe
- Institute of Socio-Economics, University of Duisburg-Essen, Duisburg, Germany
| | - Moritz Köster
- Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany
- Institute of Psychology, University of Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany
| | - Carel P van Schaik
- Department of Evolutionary Biology & Environmental Studies, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
- Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Language Evolution, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Katja Liebal
- Life Sciences, Institute of Biology, Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany
- Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany
| | - Judith M Burkart
- Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
- Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Language Evolution, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
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4
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Köster M, Hepach R. Preverbal infants' understanding of social norms. Sci Rep 2024; 14:2983. [PMID: 38316858 PMCID: PMC10844370 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-53110-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/19/2023] [Accepted: 01/27/2024] [Indexed: 02/07/2024] Open
Abstract
Social norms are foundational to human cooperation and co-existence in social groups. A crucial marker of social norms is that a behavior is not only shared, but that the conformity to the behavior of others is a basis for social evaluation (i.e., reinforcement and sanctioning), taking the is, how individuals usually behave, to an ought, how individuals should behave to be socially approved by others. In this preregistered study, we show that 11-month-old infants grasp this fundamental aspect about social norms already in their first year. They showed a pupillary surprise response for unexpected social responses, namely the disapproval and exclusion of an individual who showed the same behavior like others or the approval and inclusion of an individual who behaved differently. That preverbal infants link the conformity with others' behavior to social evaluations, before they respond to norm violations themselves, indicates that the foundations of social norm understanding lie in early infancy.
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Affiliation(s)
- Moritz Köster
- Institute of Psychology, University of Regensburg, Sedanstraße 1, 93055, Regensburg, Germany.
| | - Robert Hepach
- Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
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5
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Hepach R, Engelmann JM, Herrmann E, Gerdemann SC, Tomasello M. Evidence for a developmental shift in the motivation underlying helping in early childhood. Dev Sci 2023; 26:e13253. [PMID: 35191158 PMCID: PMC10078187 DOI: 10.1111/desc.13253] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/24/2021] [Revised: 01/27/2022] [Accepted: 02/08/2022] [Indexed: 12/15/2022]
Abstract
We investigated children's positive emotions as an indicator of their underlying prosocial motivation. In Study 1, 2-, and 5-year-old children (N = 64) could either help an individual or watch as another person provided help. Following the helping event and using depth sensor imaging, we measured children's positive emotions through changes in postural elevation. For 2-year-olds, helping the individual and watching another person help was equally rewarding; 5-year-olds showed greater postural elevation after actively helping. In Study 2, 5-year-olds' (N = 59) positive emotions following helping were greater when an audience was watching. Together, these results suggest that 2-year-old children have an intrinsic concern that individuals be helped whereas 5-year-old children have an additional, strategic motivation to improve their reputation by helping.
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Affiliation(s)
- Robert Hepach
- Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
| | - Jan M Engelmann
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, California, USA
| | - Esther Herrmann
- Department of Psychology, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK
| | - Stella C Gerdemann
- Department of Research Methods in Early Child Development, Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany.,Leipzig Research Center for Early Child Development, Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany
| | - Michael Tomasello
- Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA.,Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
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6
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Tavassoli N, Dunfield K, Kleis A, Recchia H, Conto LP. Preschoolers’ responses to prosocial opportunities during naturalistic interactions with peers: A cross‐cultural comparison. SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT 2022. [DOI: 10.1111/sode.12620] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Nasim Tavassoli
- Department of Education Concordia University Montreal Quebec Canada
| | - Kristen Dunfield
- Department of Psychology Concordia University Montreal Quebec Canada
| | - Astrid Kleis
- Department of Psychology Concordia University Montreal Quebec Canada
| | - Holly Recchia
- Department of Education Concordia University Montreal Quebec Canada
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7
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Michael J, Green A, Siposova B, Jensen K, Kita S. Finish What you Started: 2‐Year‐Olds Motivated by a Preference for Completing Others’ Unfinished Actions in Instrumental Helping Contexts. Cogn Sci 2022; 46:e13160. [DOI: 10.1111/cogs.13160] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/28/2021] [Revised: 05/06/2022] [Accepted: 05/09/2022] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- John Michael
- Department of Cognitive Science Central European University
| | | | | | - Keith Jensen
- Human Communication, Development & Hearing University of Manchester
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8
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Gerdemann SC, Büchner R, Hepach R. How being observed influences preschoolers’ emotions following (less) deserving help. SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT 2022. [DOI: 10.1111/sode.12578] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Stella C. Gerdemann
- Department of Early Child Development Faculty of Education Leipzig University Leipzig Germany
- Leipzig Research Center for Early Child Development Leipzig University Leipzig Germany
| | - Ronja Büchner
- University of Leipzig Medical Center Department of Psychiatry Leipzig Germany
| | - Robert Hepach
- Department of Experimental Psychology University of Oxford Oxford UK
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Dahl A, Goeltz MT, Brownell CA. Scaffolding the emergence of infant helping: A longitudinal experiment. Child Dev 2021; 93:751-759. [PMID: 34779506 DOI: 10.1111/cdev.13710] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
Early social experiences, such as caregiver scaffolding, play a crucial but disputed role in the emergence of prosociality. A longitudinal experiment examined how explicit scaffolding-such as encouragement or praise-influences helping late in the first year, when helping emerges. Eighty-three infants (40 female, 6-9 months, 54% White, 17% Hispanic/Latinx, 16% Asian) participated in up to 10-weekly home visits in which they could help an experimenter in a novel activity. Data were collected in Santa Cruz, CA between February 2018 and August 2019. Compared to the control condition, explicit scaffolding increased helping by handing out-of-reach objects, η2 = .02, and, among younger infants, by cleaning up. Helping also increased with age and visit number. Using a new paradigm, this research provides experimental evidence for how adults' scaffolding shapes the emergence of helping in infancy.
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Affiliation(s)
- Audun Dahl
- University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, California, USA
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10
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Dahl A, Baxley CP, Waltzer T. The Two-Front Forever War: Moral Nativism and Its Critics. Hum Dev 2021; 65:180-187. [PMID: 34629496 DOI: 10.1159/000517406] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/20/2021] [Accepted: 05/20/2021] [Indexed: 11/19/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Audun Dahl
- University of California, Santa Cruz, California, USA
| | | | - Talia Waltzer
- University of California, Santa Cruz, California, USA
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11
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Grueneisen S, Warneken F. The development of prosocial behavior-from sympathy to strategy. Curr Opin Psychol 2021; 43:323-328. [PMID: 34530222 DOI: 10.1016/j.copsyc.2021.08.005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/01/2021] [Revised: 08/03/2021] [Accepted: 08/04/2021] [Indexed: 11/03/2022]
Abstract
Children act prosocially already in their first years of life. Research has shown that this early prosociality is mostly motivated by sympathy for others, but that, over the course of development, children's prosocial behaviors become more varied, more selective, and more motivationally and cognitively complex. Here, we review recent evidence showing that starting at around age 5, children become gradually capable of strategically using prosocial acts as instrumental means to achieve ulterior goals such as to improve their reputation, to be chosen as social partners, to elicit reciprocity, and to navigate interpersonal obligations. Children's sympathy-based prosociality is thus being extended and reshaped into a behavioral repertoire that enables individuals to pursue and balance altruistic, mutualistic, and selfish motives.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sebastian Grueneisen
- University of Michigan, Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, 530 Church Street, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA; Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Center for Adaptive Rationality, Lentzeallee 94, Berlin, 14195, Germany.
| | - Felix Warneken
- University of Michigan, Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, 530 Church Street, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA
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12
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Abstract
Children’s household contributions have been studied across cultural communities, mostly on the basis of maternal reports. Less is known about children’s views of their contributions. This study examines Yucatec Maya children’s ethnotheories of learning to help at home and their motivation for helping. We interviewed 38 7- to 11-year-old children in two communities in the Yucatán Peninsula, México. Children in both communities contributed substantially to their families by regularly taking the initiative to help with family work. Children explained that they like to help and that helping is a shared responsibility among family members. Children’s sense of belonging and responsibility to the family seemed to be the driving forces in their contributions, as they pay attention to the needs of the family and take the initiative to learn and help. These findings demonstrate the relevance of studying children’s ethnotheories to understand cultural variations on learning to help at home.
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13
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Giner Torréns M, Dreizler K, Kärtner J. Insight into toddlers' motivation to help: From social participants to prosocial contributors. Infant Behav Dev 2021; 64:101603. [PMID: 34214921 DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2021.101603] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/29/2020] [Revised: 06/18/2021] [Accepted: 06/19/2021] [Indexed: 10/21/2022]
Abstract
What drives toddlers' helping behavior? And do toddlers' helping motivations change across time? In line with Dahl and Paulus (2019), we propose that initially, toddlers start helping in ongoing chores driven by their interest in social interactions, and, later on, their helping becomes more concern based, or based on a sense of responsibility. To test this assumption, we used a longitudinal approach to examine the role that social interaction plays in toddlers' motivation to help as they grow older. As such, we investigated whether a disruption to an experimenter during a shared chore task affected toddlers' motivations to continue helping at the ages of 18, 21 and 24 months. Results showed that toddlers at 18 months were less likely to continue helping when the experimenter was disrupted from the shared task, in comparison to toddlers at 21 and at 24 months. These findings support the idea that toddlers develop from socially based participators into more prosocially based contributors.
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14
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Competence-based helping: Children's consideration of need when providing others with help. J Exp Child Psychol 2021; 210:105206. [PMID: 34134018 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2021.105206] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/12/2021] [Revised: 05/21/2021] [Accepted: 05/21/2021] [Indexed: 11/20/2022]
Abstract
When and how other people's needs influence children's helping is poorly understood. Here we focused on whether children use information about other people's competence in their helping. In Study 1 (N = 128 4- to 8-year-old children), children could provide help to both an incompetent target and a competent target by pushing levers. Whereas older children helped incompetent targets more than competent targets, younger children (<5 years) helped both targets equally. Two further experiments (N = 20 and N = 28) revealed that 4-year-olds understood that the incompetent person needed more help and also understood how they could help. Thus, young children do not, like older children, give more help to those who need it the most. We discuss potential developmental changes toward competence-based helping.
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15
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Barragan RC, Meltzoff AN. Human infants can override possessive tendencies to share valued items with others. Sci Rep 2021; 11:9635. [PMID: 33953287 PMCID: PMC8100139 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-88898-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/12/2021] [Accepted: 04/16/2021] [Indexed: 02/03/2023] Open
Abstract
Possessiveness toward objects and sharing are competing tendencies that influence dyadic and group interactions within the primate lineage. A distinctive form of sharing in adult Homo sapiens involves active giving of high-valued possessions to others, without an immediate reciprocal benefit. In two Experiments with 19-month-old human infants (N = 96), we found that despite measurable possessive behavior toward their own personal objects (favorite toy, bottle), infants spontaneously gave these items to a begging stranger. Moreover, human infants exhibited this behavior across different types of objects that are relevant to theory (personal objects, sweet food, and common objects)-showing flexible generalizability not evidenced in non-human primates. We combined these data with a previous dataset, yielding a large sample of infants (N = 192), and identified sociocultural factors that may calibrate young infants' sharing of objects with others. The current findings show a proclivity that is rare or absent in our closest living relatives-the capacity to override possessive behavior toward personally valued objects by sharing those same desired objects with others.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rodolfo Cortes Barragan
- Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, USA.
- Department of Psychology, University of Washington, Seattle, USA.
| | - Andrew N Meltzoff
- Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, USA.
- Department of Psychology, University of Washington, Seattle, USA.
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Stout W, Karahuta E, Laible D, Brandone AC. A longitudinal study of the differential social-cognitive foundations of early prosocial behaviors. INFANCY 2021; 26:271-290. [PMID: 33332764 DOI: 10.1111/infa.12381] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/12/2019] [Revised: 07/28/2020] [Accepted: 11/17/2020] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Abstract
A growing body of work has documented the emergence of instrumental helping and sharing in the second year of life; however, less is known about mechanisms that underlie development and production of prosocial behavior. The current study took a longitudinal approach to explore whether the origins of prosocial behaviors can be traced back to foundational social-cognitive capacities emerging in infancy. In a sample of 90 children, longitudinal relations were examined between intention understanding and joint attention measured in infancy (8-12 months) and later instrumental helping and sharing behavior assessed in the toddler years (18-25 months). We expected social-cognitive capacities supporting infants' understanding of others to be positively related to their prosocial behaviors as toddlers. Measured variable path analyses revealed two distinct developmental pathways from infant social cognition to later prosocial behavior: 1) Instrumental helping in the toddler years was positively predicted by intention understanding in infancy; 2) sharing in the toddler years was positively predicted by infants' initiating joint attention. These results lend support to proposals on the multidimensional nature of early prosocial behavior and offer the first longitudinal evidence that the origins of toddlers' prosocial behavior can be traced to social-cognitive capacities emerging in infancy.
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Affiliation(s)
- Wyntre Stout
- Department of Psychology, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA, USA
| | - Erin Karahuta
- Department of Psychology, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA, USA
| | - Deborah Laible
- Department of Psychology, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA, USA
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18
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Köster M, Yovsi R, Kärtner J. Cross-Cultural Differences in the Generation of Novel Ideas in Middle Childhood. Front Psychol 2020; 11:1829. [PMID: 32903850 PMCID: PMC7438980 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01829] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/29/2020] [Accepted: 07/02/2020] [Indexed: 11/29/2022] Open
Abstract
Innovation and creativity have recently been in the center of the debate on human cultural evolution. Yet, we know very little about childrens’ developing capacity to generate novel ideas, as a key component of innovation and creativity, in different cultural contexts. Here, we assessed 8‐ to 9-year-old children from an autonomous and a relational cultural context, namely Münster (urban Germany; n = 29) and Banten (rural Cameroon; n = 29). These cultural contexts vary largely in their ecology, social structure, and educational system, as well as the cultural models on children’s individual development and thinking. Therefore, they provide an optimal contrast to investigate cultural similarities and differences in development of creative capacities. We applied classical divergent thinking tasks, namely an alternative uses task and a pattern association task. In these tasks, children are asked to generate as many ideas as possible what an object could be used for or what a pattern could be. First, our study revealed a good internal consistency and inter-task correlations for the assessment of children’s fluency and the generation of unique ideas in both cultures. Second, and most critically, we found significantly higher levels of creative capacities in children from Münster in contrast to Banten. This was reflected in both a higher number of ideas (fluency) and a higher number of unique ideas (uniqueness). Third, looking at the type of answers that children gave in the alternative uses task, we found that children from Münster and Banten uttered a similar number of conventional ideas, but that children from Münster uttered more ideas to manipulate an object, invent novel things with an object, and involve an object in play or pretend play, or in a fantasy story. This demonstrates that early creative development is strongly influenced by the cultural context and substantiates the cultural nature of human cognitive development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Moritz Köster
- Institute of Psychology, Free University Berlin, Berlin, Germany
- *Correspondence: Moritz Köster,
| | | | - Joscha Kärtner
- Department of Psychology, University of Münster, Münster, Germany
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19
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Schmerse D, Hepach R. How socialization goals and peer social climate predict young children's concern for others: Evidence for a development shift between 2 and 4 years of age. SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT 2020. [DOI: 10.1111/sode.12478] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Daniel Schmerse
- Department of Educational Research and Educational Psychology Leibniz Institute for Science and Mathematics Education Kiel Germany
| | - Robert Hepach
- Department of Research Methods in Early Child Development Leipzig University Leipzig Germany
- Department of Experimental Psychology University of Oxford Oxford UK
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20
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Mavridis P, Kärtner J, Cavalcante LIC, Resende B, Schuhmacher N, Köster M. The Development of Context-Sensitive Attention in Urban and Rural Brazil. Front Psychol 2020; 11:1623. [PMID: 32793045 PMCID: PMC7393234 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01623] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/28/2019] [Accepted: 06/16/2020] [Indexed: 12/03/2022] Open
Abstract
Human perception differs profoundly between individuals from different cultures. In the present study, we investigated the development of context-sensitive attention (the relative focus on context elements of a visual scene) in a large sample (N = 297) of 5- to 15-year-olds and young adults from rural and urban Brazil, namely from agricultural villages in the Amazon region and the city of São Paulo. We applied several visual tasks which assess context-sensitive attention, including an optical illusion, a picture description, a picture recognition and a facial emotion judgment task. The results revealed that children and adults from the urban sample had a higher level of context-sensitive attention, when compared to children and adults from the rural sample. In particular, participants from São Paulo were more easily deceived by the context elements in an optical illusion task and remembered more context elements in a recognition task than participants from rural Amazon villages. In these two tasks, context-sensitivity increased with age. However, we did not find a cultural difference in the picture description and the facial emotion judgment task. These findings support the idea that visual information processing is highly dependent on the culture-specific learning environments from very early in development. Specifically, they are more consistent with accounts that emphasize the role of the visual environment, than with the social orientation account. However, they also highlight that further research is needed to disentangle the diverse factors that may influence the early development of visual attention, which underlie culture-specific developmental pathways.
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Affiliation(s)
- Pablo Mavridis
- Department of Psychology, University of Münster, Münster, Germany
| | - Joscha Kärtner
- Department of Psychology, University of Münster, Münster, Germany
| | | | - Briseida Resende
- Department of Experimental Psychology, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
| | - Nils Schuhmacher
- Department of Psychology, University of Münster, Münster, Germany
| | - Moritz Köster
- Department of Cross-Cultural Developmental Psychology, Free University Berlin, Berlin, Germany
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21
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Kärtner J, Schuhmacher N, Giner Torréns M. Culture and early social-cognitive development. PROGRESS IN BRAIN RESEARCH 2020; 254:225-246. [PMID: 32859289 DOI: 10.1016/bs.pbr.2020.06.011] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/09/2023]
Abstract
From a developmental systems perspective, this chapter focuses on the question whether culture matters for children's early social-cognitive development. Based on a review of the current cross-cultural literature, we evaluate the current state of research on cross-cultural similarities and differences in major developmental milestones of early social cognition, namely (i) the development of self-awareness and an understanding of self and others as intentional agents, (ii) advanced forms of social learning and (iii) prosocial cognition and behavior. Overall, the current cross-cultural research suggests universality without uniformity: the common suite of social-cognitive skills emerges reliably and, at the same time, there are culture-specific accentuations of social-cognitive development across domains that mostly are in line with cultural values, beliefs and practices. By following different agendas when providing and structuring physical and social settings for their children, caregivers coherently organize infants' nascent intuitions, sentiments, and inclinations into increasingly coherent patterns of attention, appraisal, experience and behavior that are in line with cultural ideals and beliefs. By doing so, culturally informed social interaction sets the stage for culture-specific modulations of social cognition already in the first years of life.
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Affiliation(s)
- Joscha Kärtner
- Department of Psychology, University of Münster, Münster, Germany.
| | - Nils Schuhmacher
- Department of Psychology, University of Münster, Münster, Germany
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22
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Bensalah L, Caillies S. High and low theory-of-mind scores of child-teachers: Which teaching strategies are efficient? COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT 2020. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cogdev.2020.100920] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
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23
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Köster M, Kayhan E, Langeloh M, Hoehl S. Making Sense of the World: Infant Learning From a Predictive Processing Perspective. PERSPECTIVES ON PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE 2020; 15:562-571. [PMID: 32167407 PMCID: PMC7243078 DOI: 10.1177/1745691619895071] [Citation(s) in RCA: 38] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/12/2023]
Abstract
For human infants, the first years after birth are a period of intense exploration-getting to understand their own competencies in interaction with a complex physical and social environment. In contemporary neuroscience, the predictive-processing framework has been proposed as a general working principle of the human brain, the optimization of predictions about the consequences of one's own actions, and sensory inputs from the environment. However, the predictive-processing framework has rarely been applied to infancy research. We argue that a predictive-processing framework may provide a unifying perspective on several phenomena of infant development and learning that may seem unrelated at first sight. These phenomena include statistical learning principles, infants' motor and proprioceptive learning, and infants' basic understanding of their physical and social environment. We discuss how a predictive-processing perspective can advance the understanding of infants' early learning processes in theory, research, and application.
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Affiliation(s)
- Moritz Köster
- Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences
- Faculty of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin
- Department of Psychology, Graduate School of Letters, Kyoto University
| | - Ezgi Kayhan
- Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences
- Department of Psychology, University of Potsdam
| | - Miriam Langeloh
- Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences
- Department of Psychology, Heidelberg University
| | - Stefanie Hoehl
- Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna
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24
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Lee W, Kim EY, Song H. Do infants expect others to be helpful? BRITISH JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 2020; 38:478-490. [DOI: 10.1111/bjdp.12331] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/24/2019] [Revised: 03/02/2020] [Indexed: 12/01/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Wooyeol Lee
- Chungbuk National University Cheongju South Korea
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25
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Coppens AD, Corwin AI, Alcalá L. Beyond Behavior: Linguistic Evidence of Cultural Variation in Parental Ethnotheories of Children's Prosocial Helping. Front Psychol 2020; 11:307. [PMID: 32226401 PMCID: PMC7081774 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00307] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/23/2019] [Accepted: 02/10/2020] [Indexed: 11/25/2022] Open
Abstract
This study examined linguistic patterns in mothers' reports about their toddlers' involvement in everyday household work, as a way to understand the parental ethnotheories that may guide children's prosocial helping and development. Mothers from two cultural groups - US Mexican-heritage families with backgrounds in indigenous American communities and middle-class European-American families - were interviewed regarding how their 2- to 3-year-old toddler gets involved in help with everyday household work. The study's analytic focus was the linguistic form of mothers' responses to interview questions asking about the child's efforts to help with a variety of everyday household work tasks. Results showed that mothers responded with linguistic patterns that were indicative of ethnotheoretical assumptions regarding children's agency and children's prosocial intentions, with notable contrasts between the two cultural groups. Nearly all US Mexican-heritage mothers reported children's contributions and participation using linguistic forms that centered children's agency and prosocial initiative, which corresponds with extensive evidence suggesting the centrality of both children's autonomy and supportive prosocial expectations in how children's helpfulness is socialized in this and similar cultural communities. By contrast, middle-class European-American mothers frequently responded to questions about their child's efforts to help with linguistic forms that "pivoted" to either the mother as the focal agent in the child's prosocial engagement or to reframing the child's involvement to emphasize non-help activities. Correspondence between cultural differences in the linguistic findings and existing literature on socialization of children's prosocial helping is discussed. Also discussed is the analytic approach of the study, uncommon in developmental psychology research, and the significance of the linguistic findings for understanding parental ethnotheories in each community.
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Affiliation(s)
- Andrew D. Coppens
- Education Department, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, United States
| | - Anna I. Corwin
- Anthropology Department, Saint Mary’s College of California, Moraga, CA, United States
| | - Lucía Alcalá
- Department of Psychology, California State University, Fullerton, CA, United States
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26
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Dworazik N, Kärtner J, Lange L, Köster M. Young Children Respond to Moral Dilemmas Like Their Mothers. Front Psychol 2019; 10:2683. [PMID: 31866898 PMCID: PMC6909973 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02683] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/03/2019] [Accepted: 11/13/2019] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
There is a large scientific interest in human moral judgments. However, little is known about the developmental origins and the specific role of the primary caregivers in the early development of inter-individual differences in human morality. Here, we assess the moral intuitions of 3- to 6-year-old children and their mothers (N = 56), using child-friendly versions of five trolley dilemmas and two control scenarios. We found that children responded to moral dilemmas similar to their mothers, revealed by correlations between the responses of mothers and their children in all five moral dilemmas and a highly similar overall response pattern between mother and child across all judgments. This was revealed by a high agreement in the response pattern of children and their mothers. Furthermore, children’s overall response tendencies were similar to the response tendencies of adults. Thus, similar moral principles (e.g., the Doctrine of the Double Effect) which have been identified in adults, and describes as a universal moral grammar, may guide the moral intuitions in early childhood already. Taken together, the present findings provide the first evidence that children’s moral intuitions are closely associated with the moral intuitions of their mother.
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Affiliation(s)
- Niklas Dworazik
- Developmental Psychology, Department of Psychology, University of Münster, Münster, Germany
| | - Joscha Kärtner
- Developmental Psychology, Department of Psychology, University of Münster, Münster, Germany
| | - Leon Lange
- Differential Psychology and Personality Research, Department of Psychology, Osnabrück University, Osnabrück, Germany
| | - Moritz Köster
- Cross-Cultural Developmental Psychology, Department of Psychology, Free University Berlin, Berlin, Germany
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27
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Köster M, Itakura S, Omori M, Kärtner J. From understanding others' needs to prosocial action: Motor and social abilities promote infants' helping. Dev Sci 2019; 22:e12804. [PMID: 30706665 DOI: 10.1111/desc.12804] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/13/2018] [Revised: 01/19/2019] [Accepted: 01/25/2019] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Abstract
In the present study, we test the main hypothesis that infants' understanding of others' needs translates into helping behavior, when critical motor and social competencies have emerged, early in the second year. We assessed the understanding of others' needs in an eye-tracking paradigm and the helping behavior of 10- (n = 41) and 16-month-olds (n = 37). Furthermore, we assessed the motor and social abilities of 16-month-olds. Critically, while infants understood others' needs already at 10 months, fine motor and social interaction skills moderated the link between infants' prosocial understanding and helping behavior at 16 months. This provides first evidence that infants' helping behavior relates to their understanding of others' needs. Furthermore, we found that fine motor, gross motor, and social interaction skills predicted early helping behavior by themselves. These findings highlight that the emergence of infants' helping behavior is the result of a developmental system that includes infants' understanding of others' needs and also their motor and social competencies. The link between infants' understanding of others' needs and their early helpful actions provide further support for the prosocial nature of early helping behavior.
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Affiliation(s)
- Moritz Köster
- Department of Psychology, University of Münster, Münster, Germany.,Faculty of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany.,Department of Psychology, Graduate School of Letters, Kyoto University, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto, Japan
| | - Shoji Itakura
- Department of Psychology, Graduate School of Letters, Kyoto University, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto, Japan
| | - Masaki Omori
- Department of Psychology, Graduate School of Letters, Kyoto University, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto, Japan
| | - Joscha Kärtner
- Department of Psychology, University of Münster, Münster, Germany
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