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Toddlers' Helping Behavior Is Affected by the Effortful Costs Associated With Helping Others.
Mia Radovanovic1, Hannah Solby1, Katie S Rose1
1Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Developmental Science
|October 7, 2024
Summary
Toddlers
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Child Psychology
Background:
- Early helping behavior in children is established.
- Understanding toddlers' willingness to incur costs to help is unclear.
- Limited research exists on how helping costs change with age.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the extent to which toddlers incur costs to help others.
- To examine how the willingness to incur costs for helping changes with age.
- To identify factors influencing toddlers' costly helping behavior.
Main Methods:
- Canadian toddlers aged 21–36 months (N=48) participated.
- Four helping tasks were designed, varying in effort (lifting, cognitive, steps, pushing).
- Toddlers' helping behavior was observed across different cost levels.
Main Results:
- Lower costs increased toddlers' likelihood and readiness to help.
- Toddlers prioritized others' needs when helping was less costly.
- Both age and individual cost uniquely predicted high-cost helping, not low-cost helping.
Conclusions:
- Toddlers' helping behavior is sensitive to varying effortful costs.
- Maturation and individual costs uniquely influence toddlers' engagement in high-cost helping.
- Helping behavior in toddlers is complex and influenced by cost-benefit analysis and development.
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