Becoming Kinder: Prosocial Choice and the Development of Interpersonal Regret

Area of Science:

• Developmental Psychology
• Moral Psychology
• Social Cognition

Background:

• Understanding children's emotional development is crucial for comprehending their social behavior.
• Prosocial behavior, actions intended to benefit others, is a key aspect of social development.
• Regret, an emotion arising from a negative outcome of a past decision, has been less studied in children concerning prosocial contexts.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether children experience regret after failing to act prosocially.
• To examine the developmental trajectory of regret in children's prosocial decision-making.
• To explore the relationship between experiencing regret and subsequent prosocial choices.

Main Methods:

• Three experiments involved children aged 5 to 9 years making choices about resource donation to peers.
• Participants' decisions and subsequent emotional responses were observed, particularly after realizing their inaction negatively impacted another child.
• Control conditions were used to isolate the specific factors leading to regret.

Main Results:

• Children in both 6-7 and 7-9 age groups showed evidence of regret when their failure to donate prevented another child from winning a prize.
• However, in Experiment 2, only the older children (7-9 years) exhibited regret, suggesting an age-related development in this emotion.
• Experiencing regret was linked to an increase in making subsequent prosocial choices in 6-7 year olds.

Conclusions:

• Children, particularly older ones, can experience regret when their prosocial failures negatively affect others.
• The capacity to feel regret in prosocial contexts appears to develop with age during childhood.
• Experiencing regret may serve as a motivator for future prosocial behavior, contributing to moral development.