Helping the In‐Group Feels Better: Children’s Judgments and Emotion Attributions in Response to Prosocial Dilemmas

Abstract

Five- to 13-year-old European American children (N = 76) predicted characters' decisions, emotions, and obligations in prosocial moral dilemmas. Across age, children judged that characters would feel more positive emotions helping an unfamiliar child from the racial in-group versus out-group (African American), happier ignoring the needs of a child from the racial out-group versus in-group, and greater obligation to help a child from the racial in-group versus out-group. Situations varied by whether the race of the needy child matched versus mismatched that of the focal character. With increasing age, children attributed more positive emotions to people who sacrifice their own desires to help needy others as well as became more discriminating about the situations that call for altruistic action.