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Young Children's Understanding of Helping as Increasing Another Agent's Utility
Laura Schlingloff-Nemecz1,2, Barbara Pomiechowska1,3, Denis Tatone1,4
1Department of Cognitive Science, Central European University, Vienna, Austria.
Open Mind : Discoveries in Cognitive Science
|February 5, 2025
Summary
Young children understand
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Cognitive Science
- Social Cognition
Background:
- Instrumental helping is a key area in prosocial behavior research.
- Understanding how children perceive and define 'help' is crucial for sociomoral reasoning development.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if young children conceptualize helping as a second-order goal.
- To determine if children understand 'help' as increasing another agent's utility by reducing action costs.
Main Methods:
- Study 1: 12-month-old infants' expectations of an agent's helping behavior based on action cost reduction.
- Study 2: Three-year-old preschoolers' helping efficiency and third-party identification of helping actions.
Main Results:
- Infants did not show expectations for maximal cost reduction in helping.
- Preschoolers did not maximize cost reduction when helping themselves but identified helping in others based on cost reduction.
Conclusions:
- Children by preschool age possess a utility-based concept of helping.
- Children's own helping actions may not always be efficient, despite understanding the concept.
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