Developmental Psychology - Prosocial Behaviour

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Prosocial Behaviour

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- Any voluntary, intentional action that produces positive outcome for recipient
- Regardless of cost to donor
- Not always selfless (like altruism)

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Baston (1991)

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- Aggression easier to explain than prosocial
- Assumption of 'universal egoism'

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Stage One: Newborns

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- Cry when hearing others cry
- Suggests infants unable to differentiate their own stress from others
- (Hoffman, 1982)

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Martin and Clark (1982)

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- Children heard themselves crying stopped or remained calm

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Zahn-Waxler et al (1992)

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- Prosocial behaviour emerges from 12 months
- e.g. comforting and sharing
- Children who passed mirror test more prosocial
- Debated if truly intentional prosocial

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Zahn-Waxler and Radke-Yarrow (1982)

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- Studied 12-30 months
- Progressive levels of empathy:
- Personal distress
- Emotional contagion (sympathy)
- Egocentric empathy (offered support)

- Increases with age

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Stage Two: Early Infancy

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- Can distinguish self from others, but not their own mental states from others
- Respond to others distress in ways they find comfortable
- (Hoffman, 1982)

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Stage Three: Toddlers and Pre-Schoolers

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- Become aware others experience different mental states from their own
- Prosocial acts reflect awareness of others unique needs
- (Hoffman, 1982)

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Eisenberg and Neal (1979)

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- 25% act prosocially in response to other childs needs
- 25% act pragmatically
- 4% act selfishly
- 1% stereotyped response

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Gelfand et al (1975)

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- 5-6 year olds played game for coins
- Could donate coins to child in another room
- Experimenters prompts and praise increased prosocial behaviour

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Grusec (1982)

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- Analysed naturalistic prosocial in 4-7 year olds
- Highlighted role of caregiver:
- Verbal acknowledgement of prosocial acts
- Disapproval when child failed to act

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Stage Four: School Years

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- Prosocial becomes more sophisticated and stable
- Can empathise with others
- Increased empathy towards unexperienced situations

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Grusec (1978)

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- 8-10 year olds
- Children and experimenter played game for marbles
- Experimenter either donated marbles OR told child to do so
- Children who saw adult donate more likely to donate

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Greener and Crick (1999)

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- Asked 8-11 year olds what they do "to be nice"
- Children defined prosocial differently from experimenter
- Children: using humour, being friends, not being mean, including others, trusting, sharing

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Socialisation within Family

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- Mothers with high levels of empathy (and respond sensitively) have children with higher empathy
- Discussing consequences of behaviour increases empathy (Gibbs, 1996)
- Punishment does not increase prosocial

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Peer Support

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- Having 'best friend' encourages prosocial
- Findings have led to interventions involving this

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Cowie et al (2002)

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- Examined peer support in secondary schools:
- Befriending, mediation, counselling
- Helps those who give AND receive support
- Peer support more common amongst girls
- More common in boys at single-sex schools

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Sociobiological Theories of Prosocial Behaviour

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- Reciprocal altruism (Trivers, 1985)
- Stength: interrelationship among events, sacrifices for adaptive purposes
Weakness: cannot account for individual differences, can't explain developmental patterns

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Socio-Cognitive Account

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- Cognitive skills related to prosocial
- Development of accurate perception of others distress
- Increasing self-awareness correlated with concern for others (Zahn-Waxler, 1992)
- Normative expectations guide prosocial

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Norm of Social Responsibility

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- Widely endorsed: "help those who need help"
- General expectation
- Acquired by 8 years
- Social-cognitive approach

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Norm of Reciprocity

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- "Help those who help you"
- 2 years
- Aware of significance by early school
- Social-cognitive approach

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Norm of Deservedness

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- "Help those who deserve help"
- 4-5 years old
- Develop sense of fairness through middle childhood

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Empathy

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- Motivates prosocial behaviour
- Helping scores rise if participants asked to empathise with a person

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Hoffman Stages of Empathy (1982)

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- Global empathy
- Egocentric empathy
- Empathy for another's feelings
- Empathy of another's life condition

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Nadler and Fisher (1986)

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- Helping ambivalent:
- Positive: someone cares
- Negative: inferiority, threat to self-esteem

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Issues with Socio-Cognitive Account

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- Does not explain why we display prosocial behaviour
- Cross-cultural and individual differences ignored

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Konrath et al (2011)

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- Empathy on decline

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Twenge et al (2008)

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- Narcissism on the rise