Abstract
We examined how individual differences in social understanding contribute to variability in early-appearing prosocial behavior. Moreover, potential sources of variability in social understanding were explored and examined as additional possible predictors of prosocial behavior. Using a multi-method approach with both observed and parent-report measures, 325 children aged 18–30 months were administered measures of social understanding (e.g., use of emotion words; self-understanding), prosocial behavior (in separate tasks measuring instrumental helping, empathic helping, and sharing, as well as parent-reported prosociality at home), temperament (fearfulness, shyness, and social fear), and parental socialization of prosocial behavior in the family. Individual differences in social understanding predicted variability in empathic helping and parent-reported prosociality, but not instrumental helping or sharing. Parental socialization of prosocial behavior was positively associated with toddlers’ social understanding, prosocial behavior at home, and instrumental helping in the lab, and negatively associated with sharing (possibly reflecting parents’ increased efforts to encourage children who were less likely to share). Further, socialization moderated the association between social understanding and prosocial behavior, such that social understanding was less predictive of prosocial behavior among children whose parents took a more active role in socializing their prosociality. None of the dimensions of temperament was associated with either social understanding or prosocial behavior. Parental socialization of prosocial behavior is thus an important source of variability in children’s early prosociality, acting in concert with early differences in social understanding, with different patterns of influence for different subtypes of prosocial behavior.
Highlights
While still learning how to speak, toddlers in their second and third years of life are attentive to their own and others’ internal states and begin engaging in prosocial behaviors such as helping and sharing
Much less attention has been paid to the question of individual differences: why are some young children more likely to behave prosocially than others? One obvious possibility lies in individual differences in empathic concern for others’ distress, known from several decades of study to differ among children when it first makes its appearance in the second year (e.g., Bischof-Köhler, 1991; Zahn-Waxler et al, 1992; RothHanania et al, 2011)
We have looked to another potential source, individual differences in early social understanding
Summary
While still learning how to speak, toddlers in their second and third years of life are attentive to their own and others’ internal states and begin engaging in prosocial behaviors such as helping and sharing. Social understanding – the ability to infer others’ internal states such as goals, feelings, and desires – has its origins in the first year of life and gives rise to a variety of otheroriented behaviors at the beginning of the second year (Tomasello et al, 2005). Because social cognition is necessary for prosocial behavior, we might reasonably expect that individual differences in social cognition would relate to individual differences in prosocial behavior. The study includes measures of temperament and parent socialization to explore possible sources of individual differences in toddlers’ social understanding and prosocial behavior
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