Prosocial Motivation: Inferences From an Opaque Body of Work

Wanting to matter and learning to care: A neurodevelopmental window of opportunity for (Pro) social learning?

Wanting to matter-to feel socially recognized, appreciated, and capable of actions that benefit others-represents a fundamental motivation in human development. The motivational salience of mattering appears to increase in adolescence. Evidence suggests this is related to pubertal increases in the incentive salience for gaining social value and personal agency. This can provide a useful heuristic for understanding motivational proclivities (i.e. wanting to matter) that influence action-outcome learning as young adolescents are exploring and learning how to navigate increasingly complex social and relational environments. Adolescence also brings new capacities, motives, and opportunities for learning to care about and contribute to the benefit of others. Together, these create a window of opportunity: a sensitive period for learning to gain salient feelings of mattering through caring prosocial actions and valued societal contributions. Successfully discovering ways of mattering by doing things that matter to others may contribute to formative socio-emotional learning about self/other. Advances in understanding these social and relational learning processes and their neurodevelopmental underpinnings can inform strategies to improve developmental trajectories of social competence and wellbeing among adolescents growing up in a rapidly changing and increasingly techno-centric world.

Why Should I? Examining How Childhood Callous-Unemotional Traits Relate to Prosocial and Affiliative Behaviors and Motivations

Childhood callous-unemotional (CU) traits are characterized by low empathy, limited prosocial behavior, and restricted social affiliation. However, few studies have investigated whether CU traits are associated with different subtypes of prosocial and affiliative behavior or the specific motivational difficulties underlying these behaviors. We addressed these questions using data from 135 young children (M = 5.48 years old; 58% female) who viewed depictions of adults or children in instrumental need, emotional need, or neutral situations. We assessed recognition, suggested initiation of, and motivation for prosocial or affiliative behavior in response to each depiction. We distinguished between subtypes of prosocial (instrumental and emotional) and affiliative (parallel, cooperative, associative) behavior, as well as self- versus other-orientated motivations. Parents reported on child CU traits and conduct problems. Overall, children accurately recognized prosocial and neutral situations, offered help, and expressed other-orientated motivations for prosocial behavior and social motivations for affiliative behavior. Higher CU traits were related to lower overall recognition accuracy, which was more pronounced for emotional need. Higher CU traits were also related to fewer offers of help and more denial of prosocial behavior, particularly for instrumental need. Finally, CU traits were related to lower probability of initiating affiliative behavior. CU traits were not differentially related to self- versus other-orientated motivations for prosocial or affiliative behavior. Findings demonstrate difficulties of children with CU traits in recognizing need and offering help. Interventions for CU traits could include modules that explicitly scaffold and shape prosociality and social affiliation.

Moderate similarity leads to empathic concern, but high similarity can also induce personal distress towards others' pain

Empathic concern and personal distress are common vicarious emotional responses that arise when witnessing someone else's pain. However, the influence of perceived similarity on these responses remains unclear. In this study, we examined how perceived similarity with an injured target impacts vicarious emotional responses. A total of 87 participants watched a video of an athlete in pain preceded by a clip describing the athlete's trajectory, which indicated either high, moderate, or low similarity to the participants. Emotional self-reports, facial expressions, gaze behavior, and pupil diameter were measured as indicators of the participants' emotional responses. Participants in the moderate- and high-similarity groups exhibited greater empathic concern, as evidenced by their display of more sadness compared with those in the low-similarity group. Furthermore, those in the moderate-similarity group exhibited less avoidance by displaying reduced disgust, indicating lower personal distress compared with those in the low-similarity condition. Nevertheless, the high-similarity group displayed just as much disgust as the low-similarity group. These findings suggest that perceived similarity enhances empathic concern to others' suffering, but that high similarity can also lead to personal distress. Future studies on empathy should explore distinct vicarious states using multimodal measurements to further advance our understanding of these processes.

The proximate regulation of prosocial behaviour: towards a conceptual framework for comparative research

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.

Promotion of Values Education (Factors Involved in Prosocial Behaviors and Volunteering)

(1) Background: Prosocial behavior aligns with the current societal model, where human values hold greater importance considering cultural, social, and personal variables that may influence the opportunity to benefit others. Hence, the objective of this research was established: to understand how diverse factors influence the values of young people, aiming to promote education and enhance prosocial behavior. (2) Methods: This study is quantitative research employing an empirical-analytical, cross-sectional social research method. A validated instrument was used with a sample of 1702 individuals from the city of Melilla, noteworthy for its multicultural context due to its location in North Africa. (3) Results: Inferential analysis was conducted using multiple linear regression to predict future behaviors, focusing on the factors influencing values. Various models were employed, incorporating twelve variables and four scales: sociability, transcendence, culture, and effects. (4) Conclusions: The results and conclusions suggest the need to enhance affect and sociability, primarily among the most prominent factors.

Factors associated with dementia attitudes in an adolescent cohort: Structural Equation Modelling

Objective

Dementia-related stigma is a key barrier to people living well with dementia, leading to social isolation and poor well-being. Adolescents represent an under-researched group that will become future carers and healthcare workers for the estimated 83.2 million people who will be living with dementia by 2030. Understanding the factors involved in dementia attitude formation in adolescents is useful for the development of evidence-based anti-stigma initiatives. This study aims to identify predictors of dementia attitudes in adolescents.

Methods

This is a cross-sectional study using secondary data analysis. 470 participants aged 12-15 years old from secondary schools in the Southeast of England, United Kingdom completed validated questionnaires relating to dementia attitudes (KIDS and Brief A-ADS) as well as demographic information. Multiple regressions were employed as well as a path analysis via a structural equation model to test for direct and mediatory effects.

Results

Multiple regression models revealed that being female, having higher levels of contact with dementia, and higher levels of empathy are positively associated with dementia attitudes in adolescents (p<0.05). Within the accepted structural equation model, empathy was a key mediator between contact and dementia attitudes.

Conclusion

This study highlights the pivotal role that contact with dementia can have in influencing dementia attitudes in adolescents with empathy serving as a mediator between contact and dementia attitudes. Interventions that use contact should consider how to stimulate empathetic responses to ultimately shape dementia attitudes.

Examination of promotive and protective effects on early adolescent prosocial behavior through a bioecological lens

Introduction

Prosocial behavior during childhood has been associated with numerous positive developmental and behavioral outcomes in adolescence and adulthood. Prosocial behavior, which includes cooperation and helping others, develops within a bioecological context. Considering it through such a lens enhances the understanding of the roles of different bioecological factors in its development.

Methods

Using data from a longitudinal study of adopted children and children reared with their biological parents, this paper examined if positive aspects of a child's bioecological system at age 7 predict prosocial behavior in early adolescence (age 11), and whether these bioecological factors could offset risk due to biological family psychopathology and/or maternal prenatal substance use. The analyses incorporated variables from different levels of Bronfenbrenner's bioecological model (the individual, microsystem, exosystem, and macrosystem) and examined the promotive, and potentially protective, effect of each contextual factor, while also considering their interplay with biological family psychopathology and prenatal substance use.

Results

Results from linear regression models indicated that the microsystem variable of parental warmth at age 7 had a promotive effect on age 11 prosocial behavior. Further, in addition to its main effect, parental warmth was protective against maternal substance use during pregnancy when children were raised with their biological parent (s). Household type (biological family) and biological family internalizing psychopathology were the only other significant predictors in the model, with each associated with lower prosocial behavior at age 11.

Discussion

Study results extend prior work on the benefits of parental warmth on child outcomes by employing a strength-based, bioecological approach to the development of prosocial behavior during early adolescence and examining "for whom" the effects of parental warmth are most protective.

'Prosociality' in Daily School Life and Early Adolescents' Peer Aggression: A Multilevel Latent Profile Analysis Approach

We aimed to typify prosocial characteristics of aggressive youth. We classified early adolescents based on daily configurations of prosocial behavior and autonomous prosocial motivations (performing prosocial behavior for identified and intrinsic reasons) and controlled prosocial motivations (performing prosocial behavior for external and introjected reasons) and explored the links between the obtained sub-groups and peer aggression. The sample included 242 Israeli six-graders [Mage = 11.96 (SD = 0.18), 50% girls] and their teachers. At the daily level, adolescents self-reported on prosocial behaviors and their autonomous and controlled prosocial motivations for ten consecutive days. At the trait level, adolescents reported on global, reactive, and proactive peer aggression. Teachers reported on adolescents' global peer aggression. Using multilevel latent profile analysis, we identified four day-level profiles of prosociality: 'high prosocial autonomous' (39% of days), 'low prosocial' (35%), 'average prosocial controlled' (14%), and 'high prosocial bi-motivation' (13%). At the adolescent level, we identified four sub-groups, each characterized by one dominant daily profile: 'stable high autonomy' (33% of adolescents); 'stable high bi-motivation' (12%); 'often average controlled' (16%); 'often low' (39%). Higher self-reported aggressive adolescents, particularly proactive aggressive, had the least chance of being in the 'stable high autonomy' sub-group of all sub-groups. Teacher-reported aggressive adolescents had the least likelihood of being in the 'stable high autonomy' sub-group and the most likelihood of being in the 'often low' sub-group. In sum, peer aggression is a function of the configured phenomenology of prosocial behavior and motivations, with high prosocial autonomously motivated youth being the least aggressive.

Evaluations of pro-environmental behaviors by 7-month-old infants

Environmental morality is the foundation of a sustainable future, yet its ontogenetic origin remains unknown. In the present study, we asked whether 7-month-olds have a sense of 'environmental morality'. Infants' evaluations of two pro-environmental actions were assessed in both visual and reaching preferential tasks. In Experiment 1, the overt behavior of protecting (i.e., collecting artificial objects spread on a lawn) was compared with the action of harming the environment (i.e., by disregarding the objects). In Experiment 2, the covert behavior of protecting the environment (i.e., maintaining artificial objects inside a container) was compared with the action of harming the environment (i.e., littering the artificial objects on a lawn). The results showed infants' reaching preference for the agent who performed overt pro-environmental actions (Experiment 1), and no preference for the agent who performed covert pro-environmental actions (Experiment 2). These findings reveal a rudimentary ecological sense and suggest that infants require different abilities to evaluate overt impact-oriented and covert intend-oriented pro-environmental behaviors.

'When you give kindness out, you get it back ten times more': Ontario adults' prosocial behaviour during the first 16 months of the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has provided a collective opportunity to engage in prosocial behaviours, including kindness; however, little is known about the long-term impacts of the pandemic on such behaviours. As a part of a larger study (Health Outcomes for Adults During and Following the COVID-19 Pandemic), the purpose of this mixed methods research was two-fold: (1) to quantitatively explore adults' prosocial behaviour over time during the first 16 months of the pandemic in Ontario, Canada (April 2020-August 2021); and, (2) to more deeply explore, via focus groups, a sub-sample of Ontario adults' lived experiences of prosocial behaviour (assessed March 2022). A total of 2,188 participants were included in this study, with the majority of participants identifying as female (89.5%). At three time points, participants completed online questionnaires which included demographics, Prosocialness Scale for Adults, and three global kindness questions. A subset of participants (n = 42) also participated in one of six focus groups exploring their experiences of prosocial behaviour during the pandemic. A series of one-way repeated measures ANOVAs revealed that participants' self-reported prosocial behaviour increased significantly over time, while participants' awareness of kindness, engagement in acts of kindness, and view of kindness as crucial significantly decreased. Thematic analysis revealed three main themes: (1) shift in prosocial behaviour during the pandemic; (2) kindness from various perspectives; and, (3) prosocial burnout. This study provides insight into the longer-term effects of the pandemic on adults' prosocial behaviours and should be leveraged to help understand how individuals respond in times of crises.

Cognitive Reappraisal and Need to Belong Predict Prosociality in Mexican-Origin Adolescents

This two-year longitudinal study examined Mexican-origin adolescents' need to belong and cognitive reappraisal as predictors of multiple forms of prosocial behavior (i.e., general, emotional, and public prosocial behaviors). Prosocial behaviors, which are actions intended to benefit others, are hallmarks of social proficiency in adolescence and are influenced by intrapersonal abilities and motivations that typically develop during adolescence. Yet, few studies of Mexican-origin or other U.S. Latinx youths have examined whether such individual difference characteristics, specifically social motivation and emotion regulation skills, support prosocial behavior. In a sample of 229 Mexican-origin youth (Mage = 17.18 years, SD = 0.42, 110 girls), need to belong, cognitive reappraisal, and general prosocial behaviors were assessed at ages 17 and 19. Emotional and public forms of prosociality also were assessed at age 19. Cognitive reappraisal was positively associated with concurrent general prosociality at age 17, whereas need to belong was positively associated with concurrent public prosociality at age 19. Moderation analyses revealed that general and emotional types of prosocial behaviors at age 19 were lowest for youth with both lower need to belong and less use of cognitive reappraisal at 19 years. Greater cognitive reappraisal skills and need to belong may reflect distinct motivations for engaging in varying forms of prosocial behavior in late adolescence.

Fair sharing is just caring: Links between justice sensitivity and distributive behavior in middle childhood

Justice sensitivity (JS), the tendency to perceive and adversely respond to injustice, was related to prosocial behavior in different age groups and to distributive preferences in adults. To test influences of JS on sharing and distributive preferences, middle childhood as an important phase for moral development may be particularly interesting. We asked 1320 5- to 12-year-old children (M = 8.05 years, SD = 1.02; 51.2 % girls, 1.3 % transgender and gender-nonconforming) to read five vignettes that made salient the different principles of distributive justice (equality, merit, and need) and to distribute imaginary sweets between themselves and one described child (sharing) or between two described children (distributing). Children also rated their JS, and parents rated children's theory of mind (ToM) abilities and empathy. More concerns for justice for the self (victim JS) predicted distributions following the merit principle and a preference for need over equality and merit when forced to choose among the three. Caring for justice for others (altruistic JS) predicted more sharing, equal distributions, less distributions according to the merit principle, and a preference for equal distributions over merit and need when forced to choose among the three. These associations prevailed when ToM and empathy were included as control variables. The findings underline the importance of justice-related personality traits, such as JS, for moral development in middle childhood.

Adolescents' Perceptions of Social Risk and Prosocial Tendencies: Developmental Change and Individual Differences

Many prosocial behaviors involve social risks such as speaking out against a popular opinion, bias, group norm, or authority. However, little is known about whether adolescents' prosocial tendencies develop over time with their perceptions of social risks. This accelerated longitudinal study used within-subject growth-curve analyses to test the link between prosocial tendencies and social risk perceptions, in a sample of adolescents who completed self-reports annually for three years (N = 893; M age = 12.30 years, 10 - 14 years at Wave 1, and 10 - 17 years across the full study period; 50% Girls, 33% White non-Latinx, 27% Latinx, 20% African American, 20% Mixed/Other Race). The association between social risk tolerance and prosocial tendencies changed significantly across adolescence, such that at for younger adolescents, more prosocial tendencies were associated with less social risk tolerance, whereas for relatively older adolescents, more prosocial tendencies were associated marginally with more social risk tolerance. Additional individual differences by empathy (but not sensation seeking) emerged. These findings suggest that prosocial development across adolescence may be associated with an underlying ability to tolerate social risks.

Evidence for a developmental shift in the motivation underlying helping in early childhood

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.

Prosocial behavior in toddlerhood and early childhood: Consistency across subtypes and over time

Introduction

Young children show their capacity for compassion and their desire to enhance the welfare of others in multiple ways. The present study sought to address gaps in knowledge regarding prosociality in the early years. Specifically, the study examined whether different subtypes of prosociality are interrelated, whether they are consistent over time, as well as the meaning of young children's spontaneous versus cued prosocial behavior.

Methods

In a longitudinal sample (N = 151), three subtypes of prosocial behavior-instrumental helping, compassionate helping (comforting), and sharing-were assessed using behavioral tasks in toddlerhood (18 months) and early childhood (36 months).

Results

Consistent with hypothesis, partial convergence was found between the different prosociality subtypes at each age. There was also modest continuity over time, both within and across prosocial subtypes. Moreover, at both ages, when children helped or shared spontaneously, they also provided more assistance in the task. Children's tendency to assist spontaneously was partially consistent across situations by early childhood.

Discussion

The findings indicate that a moderately stable disposition toward prosociality is already evident during early ontogeny. Moreover, different subtypes of prosocial behavior are distinct yet interrelated in the early years, suggesting they have both common and unique underlying mechanisms. Lastly, young children's spontaneous (versus cued) prosocial action appears to reflect both motivational and cognitive processes.

Why help others? Insights from rodent to human early childhood research

Helping behavior are actions aiming at assisting another individual in need or to relieve their distress. The occurrence of this behavior not only depends on automated physiological mechanisms, such as imitation or emotional contagion, that is, the individual's emotion and physiological state matching with others, but also needs motivation to sustain. From a comparative and developmental perspective, we discover that the motivation for helping behavior has a deep foundation both phylogenetically and ontogenetically. For example, empathic concern for others, relieving personal distress and the desire for social contact are universal motivations across rodents, non-human primates and human early childhoods. Therefore, a circle-layered model integrating evidences for motivation for helping behavior from rodent to human early childhood research is proposed: the inner circle contains the emotional-behavioral system and the outer circle contains the affective-cognitive system. The application of this model has significance for both behavioral neuroscience research and cultivating prosocial behavior in human society.

Examining the influence of shyness on children's helping and comforting behaviour

Introduction

Shy children, who tend to feel anxious around others and withdraw from social interactions, are found to be less prosocial than their not-shy peers in some studies, though not in others. To examine the contexts in which shy children may be more or less likely to engage in prosocial behaviour, we compared children's willingness and ability to intervene during in-person tasks that differed in social engagement demands and complexity, factors that have been conflated in past research.

Methods

We presented 42, 3.5- to 4.5-year-old children with prosocial problems that varied, in a 2 x 2 within-subjects design, by the type of intervention required (i.e., simple helping or complex comforting) and the source of the problem (i.e., social: within the experimenter's personal space; or object: a target object distanced from her).

Results

Most of the children acted prosocially, with little prompting, in the two helping tasks and in the object-centered comforting task. In contrast, fewer than half of the children acted prosocially in the social-centered comforting task. Shyer children were not less likely to intervene in any of the four tasks, but they were slower to intervene in the object-centred comforting task, in which the experimenter was upset about a broken toy.

Discussion

Thus, providing social-centered comfort to a recently-introduced adult is challenging for young children, regardless of shyness, though shy children do show hesitancy with object-centered comforting. Further, these findings provide insights into the methodological challenges of disentangling children's prosocial motivation and understanding, and we propose solutions to these challenges for future research.

Should I Help? Prosocial Behaviour during the COVID-19 Pandemic

The Movement Control Order (MCO) enacted during the COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly altered the social life and behaviour of the Malaysian population. Because the society is facing huge social and economic challenges that need individuals to work together to solve, prosocial behaviour is regarded as one of the most important social determinants. Because it is related with individual and societal benefits, participating in prosocial activities may be a major protective factor during times of global crisis. Rather than focusing only on medical and psychiatric paradigms, perhaps all that is necessary to overcome the COVID-19 risks is for individuals to make personal sacrifices for the sake of others. In reality, a large number of initiatives proven to be beneficial in decreasing viral transmission include a trade-off between individual and collective interests. Given its crucial importance, the purpose of this concept paper is to provide some insight into prosocial behaviour during the COVID-19 period. Understanding prosocial behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic is crucial because it may assist in the establishment of a post-COVID society and provide useful strategies for coping with future crises.

Configuration of prosocial motivations to enhance employees' innovation behaviors: From the perspective of coupling of basic and applied research

Prosocial motivation refers to the employees' willingness to invest for the sake of helping others. It improves basic and applied research behaviors of employees and the interaction between them. Employees' innovation behavior depends on prosocial motivation because the motivation to protect the interests of others may promote knowledge sharing and knowledge coupling. However, there is a research gap in solving the optimal solution of prosocial motivations that facilitates different types of innovation behaviors based on the combination of prosocial motivations. We perform a qualitative comparative study on the effect of the motivation configurations on innovation behaviors. We find that highly basic and highly applied research behaviors share in common collectivism-based, principlism-based, contextual, and situational motivations which work in all configurations. But the core conditions between the two are different, which are principlism-based and situational motivations, respectively. In addition, both highly basic-to-applied and highly applied-to-basic transformation behaviors share the same core condition and the same secondary conditions with highly basic and highly applied research behaviors, respectively. Moreover, the behaviors of non-highly basic research and non-highly basic-to-applied transformation share the severe absence of egoism-based motivation as the core condition in common. Non-highly behaviors of applied research and applied-to-basic transformation have a common point of the severe absence of the pressure-based type as the key. Finally, we also analyze active and passive prosocial degrees of all types of high/non-high innovation behaviors. Our study deepens the academics' thinking on multi-dimensional prosocial motivation and the classification management of coupling innovation behavior and provides implications for practice.

Understanding the Relationship between Parental Psychological Control and Prosocial Behavior in Children in China: The Role of Self-Efficacy and Gender

OBJECTIVES

Prosocial behavior is essential for individuals' development, and the study aims to analyze the relationship between parental psychological control and prosocial behavior.

METHOD

The current study investigated the relationships among Paternal Psychological Control (endogenous variable), General Self-Efficacy (mediator), and Prosocial Behaviors (exogenous endogenous variable) via a moderated mediation modeling approach (gender as the moderator). A total of 1822 Chinese students aged from 7- to 17-year-old (M_age = 12.4 years old, SD_age = 1.89, 48.6% girls) were included in the current study.

RESULTS

After controlling participants' age, the only child status, family income, and parent's education level, results revealed that higher levels of parental control were associated with lower levels of students' self-efficacy, which, in turn, reduced students' prosocial behavior intention. Moreover, the relationship between self-efficacy and prosocial behavior intention was moderated by students' gender, where the positive effects of self-efficacy on prosocial behavior intentions were reduced in girls.

CONCLUSION

Findings highlight the importance of parental psychological control for supporting children's self-efficacy to promote prosocial behaviors on different gender groups.

Personal Values and Sustained Attention as Predictors of Children's Helping Behavior in Middle Childhood

OBJECTIVE

This study tested the effect of personal values (motivation) and sustained attention (cognitive ability) on children's helping behavior.

METHOD

Children (N = 162, age range 8-9 years, mean = 8.81, SD =.43) completed value ranking and go/no-go tasks, and their helping behavior was examined.

RESULTS

Children who valued self-transcendence over self-enhancement helped more than others. Surprisingly, children's lack of sustained attention was associated with more helping among those who valued self-transcendence over self-enhancement or openness-to-change over conservation values. Valuing both self-transcendence and openness-to-change was also associated with more helping.

CONCLUSIONS

Children are more likely to help others if they value self-transcendence and openness to change. Notably, children's tendency to act upon these values may be facilitated (rather than obstructed by) low attention skills.

Developmental trajectories of empathic concern in infancy and their links to social competence in early childhood

BACKGROUND

Empathic concern is an important component of children's social competence. Yet, little is known about the role of the development of concern for others during infancy as a predictor of social competence in early childhood.

METHODS

Israeli infants (N = 165, 50% girls) were observed five times, from 3 to 36 months. Empathic concern was assessed at ages 3-18 months using observations, and four components of social competence were assessed at 36 months using observations and teacher reports.

RESULTS

Four groups with distinct developmental trajectories of empathic concern from 3 to 18 months were identified: early-onset (starting high and increasing), low-empathy (starting low with minimal increase), rising (starting low and increasing considerably), and a very small group with a negative slope (decreasing). The first three trajectories differed on aspects of social competence at 36 months. Early-onset children continued to exhibit the highest empathic concern. Both the early-onset and rising groups had greater affective knowledge than the low-empathy group. Moreover, the rising group had better peer relations compared with low-empathy trajectory children.

CONCLUSIONS

Children who exhibit high levels of empathy early in infancy are likely to show high social competence later on. However, even when initial empathy levels are low, subsequent growth in empathy from 3 to 18 months can occur, with positive consequences for children's social competence at 36 months. Only children with low initial empathic concern and minimal growth across infancy are at increased risk of having poorer socioemotional capabilities in early childhood.

Young Children’s Conceptualisations of Kindness: A Thematic Analysis

Although there is much interest in the development of prosocial behaviour in young children, and many interventions that attempt to cultivate kindness in children, there is a paucity of research exploring children’s lived experiences of kindness and including their voices. In this study, children’s understanding of kindness is approached through qualitative interviews using puppets. Interviews were conducted with 33 children aged 5-6 years in 3 schools in the United Kingdom. Through thematic analysis, 4 themes were developed: (a) doing things for others, (b) relating with others, (c) rules and values, and (d) kindness affects us. These themes are examined in light of current thinking on prosocial and sociomoral development, and several key insights are highlighted, including types of prosocial behaviour, social connection, kindness-by-omission and defending, in-group bias, universal kindness versus personal safety, self-image, and a desire to improve the condition of society. These findings have implications for future research on prosocial development and for the design of kindness-based interventions, as well as providing an ecologically valid method of inquiry for use with young children.

Young children show negative emotions after failing to help others

Self-conscious emotions, such as guilt and shame, motivate the adherence to social norms, including to norms for prosociality. The relevance of an observing audience to the expression of negative self-conscious emotions remains poorly understood. Here, in two studies, we investigated the influence of being observed on 4- to 5-year-old children's (N = 161) emotional response after failing to help someone in need and after failing to complete their own goal. As an index of children's emotional response, we recorded the change in children's upper body posture using a motion depth sensor imaging camera. Failing to help others lowered children's upper body posture regardless of whether children were observed by an audience or not. Children's emotional response was similar when they failed to help and when they failed to complete their own goal. In Study 2, 5-year-olds showed a greater decrease in upper body posture than 4-year-olds. Our findings suggest that being observed is not a necessary condition for young children to express a negative self-conscious emotion after failing to help or after failing to complete their own goal. We conclude that 5-year-olds, more so that 4-year-olds, show negative emotions when they fail to adhere to social norms for prosociality.

The Prosocial Driver of Ecological Behavior: The Need for an Integrated Approach to Prosocial and Environmental Education

Although both altruistic and ecological behaviors can be considered prosocially driven behaviors, our psychological understanding of what motivates action in either the human or ecological domains is still in its infancy. We aimed to assess connection to nature and connection to humans as mediators of the relationship between prosocial propensity and prosocial behaviors in both the ecological and human domains. This study used empathy as an indicator of an individual’s prosocial propensity. The data for the study was collected through surveys in Russian (841 participants) and Spanish (418 participants). The study demonstrated that an individual’s prosocial propensity can be actioned into ecological (nature-related) behavior through connection to nature. Similarly, an individual’s prosocial propensity can be actioned into altruistic (human-related) behavior through connection to humans. However, the present study also demonstrates that an individual’s prosocial propensity can be directed to humans through a connection to nature. Thus, altruistic and ecological behaviors are two related classes of behavior, driven by the same prosocial propensity of the individual. This study is an important step towards generating scientific support for the claim that traditionally separate teaching of prosocial and environmental subjects should be combined into a single educational approach. An integrated approach will contribute to a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary effort to create a society that is both ecologically and socially sustainable.

Trajectories of Youth's Helping From Adolescence into Adulthood: The Importance of Social Relations and Values

Helping behaviors (e.g., helping a sick friend, volunteering) are important forms of community involvement and likely change with age and life context. Yet, trajectories of community helping from adolescence through early adulthood have rarely been examined. It is also unclear how the roles of family, friends, and social attitudes might foster the development of helping behaviors across these years. We report on a study of community helping in a Canadian youth sample, across five intervals over a 15-year span, beginning at age 17 (N = 416). Helping displayed a quadratic trend, decreasing into the mid-20s, and then rebounding somewhat by 32. Social responsibility and salience of friends' prosocial moral values positively predicted age 17 community helping, whereas parents' moral values predicted less decrease in helping over this timeline. These findings add to an understanding of moral influences and social responsibility, in the potential shaping of youths' community helping behaviors.

Two Dimensions of Moral Cognition as Correlates of Different Forms of Participation in Bullying

The present study investigated the extent to which moral disengagement and the tendency to consider moral rules as socio-conventional rules are distinct dimensions of morality, and their association with three different forms of participation in bullying (perpetrating bullying, defending the victim and passive bystander behavior). These two types of moral cognitions have been theorized in different models of morality and are usually studied independently, even if research on moral shifts (the interpretation of a moral rule transgression as a socio-conventional rule transgression) suggests some possible overlaps. A group of 276 Italian students from primary and middle school (aged 8–15) completed self-reports assessing moral disengagement, socio-conventional perception of moral rules, and participation in bullying as bully, defender of the victim and passive bystander. Results from structural equation modeling analysis confirmed that moral disengagement and socio-conventional comprehension of aggressions are separate and moderately connected morality dimensions. Controlling for age, gender and SES, only moral disengagement was positively associated with perpetrating bullying. These results point to moral disengagement as the critical component of moral cognitions to be addressed in interventions.

Effect of Restricted Group Sandplay on Interpersonal Sensitivity in College Students

This study aims to investigate the intervention effect of group sandplay on the interpersonal sensitivity of college students and analyze the relationship between the theme and interactive behavior characteristics and the intervention effect of group sandplay especially during the period of COVID-19. Sixty college students were randomly assigned to the experimental group (group sandplay) or the control group (neutral task interventions). The results showed that the interpersonal sensitivity level of the experimental group was significantly lower than that of the control group. For the experimental group, the variation in the interpersonal sensitivity level was significantly negatively correlated with the change in warm, supportive behavior during group sandplay interaction. These findings suggest that group sandplay is effective in improving the interpersonal sensitivity level of college students, and this effect can be positively predicted by warm and supportive interaction behaviors in group sandplay.

Does affirming children's autonomy and prosocial intentions help? A microtrial into intervention component effects to improve psychosocial behavior

Prior research has related children's prosocial behavior to overall well-being, and stimulating prosocial behavior is the aim of many social-emotional skills interventions. This study assessed if affirming children's autonomy stimulates their psychosocial behavior. We conducted a three-arm microtrial with four repeated measures to assess if a social-emotional skills intervention with an autonomy affirmation component had an additive effect on children's behavior as compared to a "regular" intervention focused exclusively on teaching social-emotional skills and a no-treatment control condition. Our sample consisted of 779 children in Grades 4-6 (M_age = 10.61, SD = 0.93). Findings from latent change modeling demonstrated that the social-emotional skills intervention with an autonomy affirmation component yielded superior effects as compared to the "regular" intervention and the no-treatment control condition on the improvement of internalizing and externalizing problem behavior in the three-month period after the intervention. The intervention with autonomy affirmation did not yield superior effects on prosociality and social skills, self-efficacy, and self-esteem or self-perceived competence. The absence of these effects may be attributed to the dosage of the interventions implemented-the affirmation of children's autonomy may require more than four sessions to sort observable effects. Overall, however, the findings of this study provide an initial suggestion that it may be beneficial to affirm children's autonomy and prosocial intentions when enhancing children's behavior.

Examining a new prosocial risk-taking scale in a longitudinal sample of ethnically diverse adolescents

INTRODUCTION

This longitudinal study designed and tested the validity of a new measure of prosocial risk taking - risks that individuals take in order to help others.

METHODS

The sample was racially and ethnically diverse adolescents in the rural Southeastern United States (N = 867; Mage = 12.82 years, 10-14 years at Wave 1; 50% Girls, 33% White non-Latinx, 27% Latinx, 20% Black, 20% Mixed/Other race/ethnicity). Adolescents completed self-report measures of the new prosocial risk-taking scale at baseline and one- and two-year follow-ups.

RESULTS

Confirmatory factor analysis demonstrated excellent model fit with a 6-item single factor score. Further, the scale demonstrated good test-retest reliability at one and two-year follow ups. The scale also demonstrated convergent validity, such that prosocial risk taking was positively correlated with prosocial tendencies, empathy, and sensation seeking, and negatively correlated with negative risk-taking behavior and risk tolerance. Finally, we found significant differences by race/ethnicity (but not by gender) in prosocial risk taking, which were not attributable to measurement invariance, and should be interpreted in the context of ongoing societal inequalities between youth.

CONCLUSIONS

The new Prosocial Risk-Taking Scale yielded reliable scores in our sample. It may be used in future research to investigate individual differences in adolescents' prosocial risk taking, developmental change in prosocial risk taking, and the significance of prosocial risk taking for adolescents' emotional and social adaptation.

Religiosity as a moderator of the links between parental psychological control and children's prosociality

Three studies examined the links between psychological control and prosociality in middle childhood, and the role of religiosity as a moderator. Study 1 (101 Israeli Jewish families, ages 6-9, 50% girls) found a significant interaction, with a negative association between maternal psychological control and children's prosociality in secular but not in religious families. Study 2 (161 Israeli Jewish families, ages 6-12, 48% girls) replicated this interaction for mothers using a continuous religiosity measure. Study 3 (64 Arab Muslim Israeli families, ages 6-8.5, 50% girls) also found a significant interaction, with a positive link between psychological control and prosociality seen at higher, but not at lower, religiosity levels. The findings suggest that religiosity may alter the meaning and consequences of parenting practices.

Bidirectional spillover across days between family assistance and physical health experiences during adolescence

Helping the family may either promote or undermine adolescents' physical health and well-being. Adolescents (N = 396, 58% female, Mage = 14.57 years) completed diary checklists for 14 days, reporting whether they provided instrumental assistance (e.g., tangible tasks) and emotional support (e.g., listening, giving advice) to family, as well as their amount of physical activity, sleep, and physical symptoms (e.g., headache, backpain) each day. After providing emotional support, adolescents slept more that night and experienced fewer physical symptoms the next day, over and above prior day levels. When adolescents provided instrumental assistance on school days (but not nonschool days), they engaged in less physical activity that day. These results were consistent across individual differences in gender, age, socioeconomic status, and ethnicity. In addition, bidirectional associations emerged such that adolescents were more likely to provide instrumental assistance on days after they slept more. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Outgroup prosocial behaviour among children and adolescents in conflict settings

More than 420 million children live amid political conflict. In such settings, understanding the development of prosocial behaviours, specifically directed at outgroups, can provide opportunities for peacebuilding. Informed by research on intergroup competition and structural inequality, we focus on outgroup prosocial behaviour targeting conflict rivals. Already from a young age, children are politically socialised and show intergroup biases that dampen helping behaviours towards conflict rivals, which continue into adulthood. We review factors that shape youth's interpersonal helping and broader forms of prosociality, such as civic engagement, across group lines. We conceptualise outgroup prosocial behaviour along a continuum, ranging from interpersonal acts to broader structural and cultural constructive change. We conclude with directions for future research.

Toddlers' expectations of third-party punishments and rewards following an act of aggression

Rewarding someone who defends the victim of an unjust aggression and punishing someone who chose not to defend her may be very important acts of reciprocation in social life. This study investigates whether 21-month-olds have some expectations concerning such punishing and rewarding actions. Infants were shown simple puppet shows and were tested using the violation-of-expectation paradigm. In Experiment 1, we found that infants looked longer when they saw a bystander puppet punishing the puppet who defended the victim rather than the puppet who did not defend her. This pattern of looking times was reversed when the punishing action was replaced with a rewarding action (Experiment 2). These findings reveal early-emerging expectations about punitive and reward motivations in third-party contexts, and provide some support for theoretical claims about the hardwiring of the human mind for cooperation and prosociality.

Emotional awareness, empathy, and generosity in high-risk youths

Although maltreatment places youths at risk for substantial deficits in prosociality, effective methods of improving these deficits have yet to be identified. The current investigation tested whether prosociality could be enhanced in maltreated youths by increasing their awareness of others' sadness. Maltreated youths (n = 145) and matched community youths (n = 106) aged 6-17 years completed a sharing task within which labels about a peer's emotions (sad vs. neutral) were experimentally manipulated. Youths who received the sad emotion label about a peer's feelings showed greater empathic concern, and in turn generosity, toward that peer than youths who received the neutral label. Findings offer new insight into potential methods of improving prosocial responding in youths and thus provide direction for intervention efforts.

Here for You: Attachment and the Growth of Empathic Support for Friends in Adolescence

Attachment was examined as a predictor of teens' empathic support for friends in a multimethod longitudinal study of 184 U.S. adolescents (58% Caucasian, 29% African American, 13% other) followed from ages 14 to 18. Adolescents' secure state of mind regarding attachment at 14 predicted teens' greater capacity to provide empathic support during observed interactions with friends across ages 16-18 (B_average  = .39). Teens' empathic support was generally stable during this period, and less secure teens were slower to develop these skills. Further, teens' attachment security predicted the degree to which friends called for their support (B_average  = .29), which was associated with teens' responsiveness to such calls. The findings suggest that secure attachment predicts teens' ability to provide empathic support in close friendships.

Safely Social: Promoting and Sustaining Adolescent Engagement in Social Distancing During the COVID-19 Pandemic

PURPOSE

Adolescents are at risk for violating COVID-19 social distancing measures owing to salient developmental needs for autonomy and relatedness. This intensive longitudinal study investigated the initiation and sustainment of adolescents' daily social distancing behaviors.

METHODS

Focus group and daily-diary approaches were used to collect 6,216 assessments from a nationwide American adolescent sample (n = 444; M_age = 15.1; 40% male; 42% black/African American, 40% white/European American, 10% Latinx, 6% Asian American, 2% Native American) over the course of 14 days at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

RESULTS

When adolescents were motivated by preventing others from getting sick, they were more likely to engage in social distancing (same day: B = .50, SE = .09, 95% confidence interval [CI] [.32, .68] p < .001; next day: B = .49, SE = .09, 95% CI [.31, .67] p < .001). Daily social support from friends (same day: B = .04, SE = .02, 95% CI [.01, .08] p < .05; next day: B = .08, SE = .02, 95% CI [.05, .12] p < .001), connectedness with friends via technology (same day: B = .23, SE = .04, 95% CI [.14, .32] p < .001; next day: B = .12, SE = .05, 95% CI [.03, .21] p < .001), and practical knowledge about ways to prevent contracting and transmitting COVID-19 (same day: B = .12, SE = .02, 95% CI [.08, .17] p < .001; next day: B = .05, SE = .02, 95% CI [.01, .10] p < .05) positively predicted adolescents' same- and next-day engagement in social distancing.

CONCLUSIONS

Adolescents who were motivated by the desire to protect others were more likely to engage in social distancing. In addition, adolescents who learned about preventative health behaviors for mitigating COVID-19, received peer support, and remained virtually connected with friends were more likely to engage in daily social distancing at the onset of the pandemic.

Parental Beliefs and Knowledge, Children's Home Language Experiences, and School Readiness: The Dual Language Perspective

Parental beliefs and knowledge about child development affect how they construct children's home learning experiences, which in turn impact children's developmental outcomes. A rapidly growing population of dual language learners (DLLs) highlights the need for a better understanding of parents' beliefs and knowledge about dual language development and practices to support DLLs. The current study examined the dual language beliefs and knowledge of parents of Spanish-English preschool DLLs (n = 32). We further asked how socioeconomic and sociocultural factors were associated with parental beliefs and knowledge, and how parental beliefs and knowledge related to DLLs' home dual language experiences and school readiness skills as rated by their teachers. Results suggested both strengths and opportunities for growth in parental beliefs and knowledge. Moreover, parents from higher-SES backgrounds reported beliefs and knowledge that were more consistent with scientific evidence. Furthermore, parental beliefs and knowledge was positively related to relative Spanish input at home and negatively related to the frequency of English language and literacy activities. However, parental beliefs and knowledge were not associated with children's dual language output at home or the frequency of Spanish language and literacy activities. Finally, parental beliefs and knowledge were associated with children's school readiness skills in Spanish but not in English. Together, these findings highlight the need for culturally responsive interventions and parent education programs, which must recognize both the strengths and areas of improvement in parents of DLLs and support parents to transform knowledge into high-quality language and literacy experiences that benefit DLLs.

The Effect of Money Denomination on Prosocial Behavior: Through the Perspective of Metaphorical Cognitive Theory

Based on metaphorical cognitive theory, this research did four experiments to examine whether and how one important feature of money, denomination, could influence prosocial behavior. Study 1 was an experiment with a sample size of 209 undergraduates (M_age = 18.97) showed that a larger denomination enhanced the probability of participants engaging in prosocial behavior rather than with a smaller denomination. Study 2 collecting data from 269 undergraduates (M_age = 18.50) further showed that larger denominations condition inspired more prosocial behavior than the control condition; and the small denominations condition produced similar levels of prosocial behavior to the control condition. Study 3 used single factor design with a sample size of 192 undergraduates (M_age = 20.49) repeated the results of Study 2. Furthermore, Study 3 excluded an important alternative explanation that the value rather than the denomination influenced prosocial behavior. Last, Study 4 applied a factorial design experiment with a sample size of 132 undergraduates (M_age = 20.92) which demonstrated that generosity mediated the effect of denomination on prosocial behavior; the effect of denomination on prosocial behavior did not depend on money priming methods. Finally, theoretical and practical implications were discussed.

Preschoolers' Helping Motivations: Altruistic, Egoistic or Diverse?

Based on Eisenberg et al.'s model of prosocial motivations, the present study examined what motivates preschoolers to display instrumental helping and how various motivations develop during the preschool years. The participants were 477 preschoolers aged 3–5 years assigned to one of five groups. In each experimental group, the experimenter emphasized an altruistic or egoistic helping motivation, namely, empathic concern, moral rules, praise or rewards. In the control group, no helping motivations were emphasized. Their instrumental helping was then measured by sorting cards for a sick child to play a game. The results show that each helping motivation had a positive effect on instrumental helping. Most of the motivational effects were similar across age, but the motivational effect of empathic concern increased obviously at the age of 5 years. Therefore, the present study reveals that both altruistic and egoistic motivations motivate preschoolers to help others. Most of the motivations develop steadily during the preschool years, but empathic concern as an altruistic motivation increases greatly at the end of the preschool years. The present study thus confirms the diversity of preschoolers' helping motivations with Eisenberg et al.'s model of prosocial motivations.

Young Children's Prosocial Behavior Protects Against Academic Risk in Neighborhoods With Low Socioeconomic Status

Children raised in neighborhoods with low socioeconomic status (SES) are at risk for low academic achievement. Identifying factors that help children from disadvantaged neighborhoods thrive is critical for reducing inequalities. We investigated whether children's prosocial behavior buffers concurrent and subsequent academic risk in disadvantaged neighborhoods in Bradford, UK. Diverse children (N = 1,175) were followed until age seven, with measurements taken at four times. We used governmental indices of neighborhood-level SES, teacher observations of prosocial behaviors, and direct assessments of academic achievement. Neighborhood SES was positively associated with academic achievement among children with low levels of prosocial behavior, but not among children with high levels of prosocial behavior. Prosocial behavior may mitigate academic risk across early childhood.

Latent profiles of multidimensional prosocial behaviors: An examination of prosocial personality groups

The current study sought to determine how prosocial behaviors reflecting various motivations (altruistic and public prosocial behaviors) and situations (i.e., anonymous, compliant, dire, and emotional prosocial behaviors) jointly inform subtypes of prosocial personality groups. Undergraduates (N = 324, M age = 19.47 years, 80% female) completed a measure of these six prosocial behaviors (Prosocial Tendencies Measure-Revised). Latent profile analysis results supported a three-group solution: altruistic helpers (AH), public helpers (PH), and altruistic idealists (AI). The AH and AI profiles were defined by elevated altruistic prosocial behaviors, but the AH profile was higher on situational helping and socioemotive and sociocognitive correlates. The PH profile was characterized by elevated public prosocial behaviors and moderate levels of situational helping. These identified profiles support multiple competing ideas of the true nature of prosocial personality, but also introduce the possibility that some individuals idealize motives but fail to engage in behavior.