NURTURANCE IN PRESCHOOL CHILDREN AND ITS RELATION TO DEPENDENCY

Abstract

Of the many types of social behavior that characterize preschool-aged children, one frequently overlooked in research is nurturance. Yet learning to nurture other people (altruism in act, if not altruism in motive) is a significant social accomplishment for children in western cultures. Development of such behaviors is basic to success in some of an individual's most important roles, e.g., those of friend, spouse, parent, teacher, etc. The present study of nurturant behavior in young children is exploratory in nature and has these goals: (a) development of an observational technique for the measurement of nurturance in preschool children; (b) examination of age and sex differences in frequency of occurrence of such behaviors; and (c) exploration of certain behavioral correlates of nurturance, particularly the various forms of dependence. In this study nurturance was globally defined as the child's giving affection, attention (including help), reassurance, and protection to other persons present in a nursery school group. Murphy's early study of sympathy (5) was concerned with one component of nurturance as defined here (reassurance). Murphy found that sympathy occurred with slightly greater frequency in older than in younger preschool children and with approximately equal frequency for boys and girls. Walters, Pearce, and Dahms (7) employed an observational method to study the incidence of affectionate behavior in preschool groups, a type of response that is one other component of nurturance as defined in the present investigation. Affection, in the observations of Walters et al., occurred more frequently among three-year-old boys than among two-year-old boys, but age differences for boys at the older preschool levels were not significant. No age differences were found for girls. Although sex differ