Prosocial choices: How do young children evaluate considerate and inconsiderate behavior?
Jellie Sierksma1, Christel L T Klootwijk2, Nikki C Lee3
1Department of Developmental Psychology.
Developmental Psychology
|August 29, 2022
Summary
Young children learn to recognize considerate behavior, viewing those who leave choices for others as nicer. This understanding of prosocial behavior develops early, influencing social evaluations.
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Social Cognition
- Moral Development
Background:
- Adults exhibit considerate behaviors, but understanding how children perceive these actions is crucial.
- Children's ability to infer social meaning from considerate versus inconsiderate actions is not fully understood.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how young children evaluate considerate and inconsiderate behavior.
- To determine the developmental trajectory of understanding prosocial actions in children.
- To explore whether children's evaluations are domain-specific.
Main Methods:
- Three preregistered studies exposed children (ages 5-12) to animated videos depicting targets making choices that affect others' options.
- Children evaluated targets' niceness and intelligence, and willingness to share toys.
- Subsequent studies manipulated the explicitness of consequences and target presentation.
Main Results:
- Older children (but not 6-year-olds) judged considerate targets as nicer and were more willing to share with them.
- Children of all ages considered both targets equally intelligent, indicating domain-specific evaluation.
- Even 5-year-olds identified considerate targets as nicer when consequences were explicit or implicit.
Conclusions:
- Considerate behavior serves as a social signal recognized early in development.
- Children's understanding of prosocial actions develops, with younger children benefiting from explicit cues.
- These findings contribute to developmental research on prosocial behavior and social inference.
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