An Exploratory Study of the Development of Social Sensitivity in Elementary School Children

Abstract

IT IS PERHAPS ironic that our social scien tists have concentrated for so many years on a study of the most of human beings. As Pitirim Sorokin (9) puts it, we have been cul tivating ever increasing study of crime and criminals ; of insanity and the insane ; of sex per version and perverts ; of hypocrisy and hypocrites. . . . The criminal has been researched incompara bly more than the saint or altruist The result is that our social scientists know little about posi tive of persons, their conduct and relation ships. Given an increasingly complex impersonal world, the need to develop the positive type, i.e., the individual who feels a genuine sympathy and concern for other human beings seems ex ceedingly important. While the amount of atten tion and financial support given to the study of negative types is comparatively huge, the es tablishment in California of a Center for the Study of Righteous Human Behavior indicates an increasing interest in the altruistic personal ity, as does the continued support of Sorokin's Harvard Research Center in Creative Altruism. While there is considerable research dealing with the growth of feelings of sympathy and con cern among pre-school children (2, 4, 5, 6) and among college students (1, 3, 7), little informa tion is available concerning the growth of such feelings in elementary school children (8, 10). Research dealing with adult feelings of sympathy and concern for human beings wherever they may live (9) seems to indicate that many adult Ameri cans are relatively unconcerned about human mis ery, tragedy, etc., that occurs any considerable physical distance from them. While we may get relatively excited about a local tragedy, for example, an earthquake in Iran seems to arouse little personal sympathy among us. The purpose of this study then is to measure the extent to which children in grades two, four and six dem onstrate feelings of sympathy and concern for people in a series of physical locations progress ing from near to far. We are interested in learn I ing more about children's willingness to go out from themselves?to.be altruistic?to offer help to people in distress wherever they may be.