Abstract
Ninety‐six 5‐year‐old girls and boys and their mothers (n ‐‐ 87) participated in a cross‐cultural study on prosocial behaviour in Germany and the former USSR. Each child was observed interacting with a playmate who appeared to be sad. The mothers’ educational belief systems were examined on the basis of: (i) a semi‐projective instrument (So‐Sit) depicting everyday conflicts between mother and child; (ii) an interview on a recent conflict. The intensity of prosocial behaviour was higher in German girls than in German boys or Russian girls. More Russian boys than girls showed at least some kind of prosocial behaviour. Russian mothers described their handling of conflicts as more harmonious than German mothers, whereas sex differences occurred within each culture. The results are discussed with regard to the impact of different child‐rearing belief systems in individualistic versus collectivist cultures on the social behaviour of children.
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