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Young children are intrinsically motivated to see others helped

Robert Hepach1, Amrisha Vaish, Michael Tomasello

  • 1Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany. hepach@eva.mpg.de

Psychological Science
|August 2, 2012
PubMed

Insights

Young children

Area of Science:

  • Developmental Psychology
  • Social Neuroscience

Background:

  • Understanding the motivations behind altruistic behaviors in young children is crucial for developmental psychology.
  • Previous research has explored various factors influencing helping behavior, but the intrinsic drivers remain debated.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the intrinsic motivation for helping behavior in 2-year-old children.
  • To determine if children's own action is necessary for their prosocial motivation or if witnessing helping is sufficient.

Main Methods:

  • Measured sympathetic arousal using relative changes in pupil dilation in 2-year-old children.
  • Compared pupil dilation when children helped someone, observed a third party helping, and when no helping occurred.

Main Results:

  • Children exhibited similar sympathetic arousal when they helped and when they observed another person being helped.
  • Sympathetic arousal levels differed significantly when helping occurred compared to when no helping was observed.

Conclusions:

  • Intrinsic motivation for helping in young children is triggered by the other person's welfare, not solely by performing the action themselves.
  • Evidence suggests that genuine concern for others' welfare is present from an early age in humans.

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