Culture-specific socialization in the first year predicts infants' prosocial development at the end of the second...

In a series of two studies, we investigated the role of culture-specific parenting practices in the early development of prosocial behavior. In a first, cross-cultural study, we examined maternal scaffolding during task assignment in a German sample (n = 68) and a Japanese sample (n = 87) when infants were 10 and 16 months old. We identified that culture-specific scaffolding-deliberate scaffolding in Germany and sensitive scaffolding in Japan-emerged by 16 months, aligning with the onset of early helping behavior. At 10 months, however, these cultural differences in scaffolding were not yet evident. Assertive scaffolding was similar across cultures and predicted infants' requested behavior at 16 months but was not yet associated with infants' helping behavior. In a second, follow-up study, we reinvited families from the Japanese sample, initially assessed at 10 months, when infants were 24 months of age (n = 30). We found that maternal sensitive scaffolding at both 10 and 24 months predicted toddlers' helping behavior at 24 months. Furthermore, assertive scaffolding at 10 months predicted maternal sensitive scaffolding and helping behaviors at 24 months. These findings suggest that early maternal scaffolding-both age-appropriate and culturally tailored-plays a crucial role in shaping early prosocial development across the first 2 years and highlight the importance of culture-specific developmental pathways in understanding and fostering human early prosocial tendencies. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).