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Toddlers' costly helping in three societies.
John Corbit1, Tara Callaghan1, Margarita Svetlova2
1Department of Psychology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia B3H 4R2, Canada.
Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
|March 30, 2020
Summary
Toddlers develop non-costly helping skills universally. However, costly helping skills in toddlers vary significantly across cultures, influenced by ownership experiences and resource availability.
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Cross-Cultural Psychology
- Behavioral Economics
Background:
- Toddlers aged 2-3 years begin to help others, even at personal cost.
- Ownership experience may influence costly helping behaviors.
- Previous research on costly helping is limited to Western societies with abundant resources.
Purpose of the Study:
- To compare the development of costly and non-costly helping in toddlers across diverse cultural contexts.
- To investigate the influence of societal factors like ownership experience and resource scarcity on helping behaviors.
- To examine age-related changes in helping tendencies in Canada, India, and Peru.
Main Methods:
- 100 toddlers (16-36 months) participated in two conditions: costly (giving own items) and non-costly (giving experimenter's items).
- The study was conducted in three societies: Canada, India, and Peru, differing in resource availability and ownership experiences.
- Children's helping behavior was observed and analyzed in relation to age and condition.
Main Results:
- Non-costly helping increased with age across all three societies.
- In Canada, costly helping increased with age.
- In Peru, costly helping remained stable with age, while in India, it decreased with age.
Conclusions:
- Non-costly helping develops uniformly across diverse societies.
- The development of costly helping is influenced by society-specific experiences, including ownership and resource access.
- Cultural factors play a significant role in shaping toddlers' costly helping behaviors.
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