Abstract
Children show stronger cooperative behavior in experimental settings as they get older, but little is known about how the environment of a child shapes this development. In adults, prosocial behavior toward strangers is markedly decreased in low socio-economic status (SES) neighborhoods, suggesting that environmental harshness has a negative impact on some prosocial behaviors. Similar results have been obtained with 9-year-olds recruited from low vs. high SES schools. In the current study, we investigate whether these findings generalize to a younger age group and a developing country. Specifically, we worked with a sample of thirty-nine 6- to 7-year-olds in two neighborhoods in a single city in Romania. Using a “Quality Dictator Game” that offers greater resolution than previous measures, we find that children living in the harsher neighborhood behave less prosocially toward a stranger than children living in the less harsh neighborhood.
Highlights
Prosocial behaviors and motivations emerge early in development, with children in their second year already motivated to provide information to others, to spontaneously pick up objects to help others, and to comfort others in distress (e.g., Eisenberg and Miller, 1987; Warneken and Tomasello, 2006, 2009; Dunfield et al, 2011)
Consistent with what Nettle et al (2011) found with English adults and what Benenson et al (2007) found with English 9-yearolds, we showed that variation in deprivation within a single city in a developing country influences the prosocial behavior of 6to 7-year-olds toward an anonymous stranger
Our study contributes to a better understanding of the impact of a harsh social environment on the development of prosocial behaviors toward strangers
Summary
Prosocial behaviors and motivations emerge early in development, with children in their second year already motivated to provide information to others, to spontaneously pick up objects to help others, and to comfort others in distress (e.g., Eisenberg and Miller, 1987; Warneken and Tomasello, 2006, 2009; Dunfield et al, 2011). The difference in prosocial behavior in the dictator game in different neighborhoods of this single city was an order of magnitude larger than the largest differences found in previous research on differences across cultures (Henrich et al, 2010). This suggests that environmental harshness within a single culture—and differences across cultures—calibrates prosocial motivations; environmental harshness within a culture may be far more important than any cross-cultural differences (see Figure 1)
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