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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Apr 23, 2026

Assessment of Social Interaction Behaviors
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A construct divided: prosocial behavior as helping, sharing, and comforting subtypes.

Kristen A Dunfield1

  • 1Department of Psychology, Center for Research in Human Development, Concordia University Montreal, QC, Canada.

Frontiers in Psychology
|September 18, 2014
PubMed
Summary

This study proposes a new taxonomy for prosocial behavior, categorizing it into helping, sharing, and comforting. This framework clarifies the early development of these essential social behaviors.

Keywords:
emotional developmentprosocial behaviorsocial-cognitive development

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Area of Science:

  • Developmental Psychology
  • Social Neuroscience
  • Behavioral Science

Background:

  • Prosocial behaviors are crucial for human social interaction and emerge early in development.
  • Mechanisms underlying prosocial behavior maintenance are not fully understood, leading to inconsistencies in research.
  • Existing literature lacks a clear framework for the diverse manifestations of prosocial actions.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To clarify inconsistencies in the understanding of prosocial behavior's emergence and development.
  • To propose a novel taxonomy of prosocial behavior based on social-cognitive constraints.
  • To differentiate helping, sharing, and comforting as distinct prosocial action types.

Main Methods:

  • Conceptual analysis and synthesis of existing literature on prosocial behavior.
  • Development of a taxonomy categorizing prosocial actions based on underlying negative states.
  • Examination of empirical evidence regarding age of onset, production patterns, and individual differences.

Main Results:

  • Prosocial behavior is categorized into helping (instrumental need), sharing (unmet material desire), and comforting (emotional distress).
  • These three types of prosocial behavior exhibit distinct ages of onset and uncorrelated production patterns.
  • Unique patterns of individual differences are observed for each category of prosocial behavior.

Conclusions:

  • Differentiating specific varieties of prosocial behavior is essential for resolving past research inconsistencies.
  • The proposed taxonomy provides a framework for future research on the ontogenetic origins of prosocial behaviors.
  • Understanding these distinctions advances our knowledge of fundamental human social behaviors.