2-103 - Integrating theoretical and novel methodological perspectives on children's prosociality

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

There is general consensus that young children already concern themselves with the well-being of others by sharing, comforting, and instrumentally fulfilling others’ needs. In contrast, the nature of the underlying mechanisms of children’s prosociality is the subject of ongoing debates (Paulus, 2014). The goal of this symposium is to bring together new ideas and introduce novel methods for studying the emotions and motivations underlying children’s prosociality. Each paper presents a different method that the respective authors have recently pioneered.
The first paper presents longitudinal data and investigated whether infants’ responses to seeing others in need (empathy), measured at the ages 3, 6, 12 and 18 months, predicted later manifestations of multiple forms of prosociality. Paper 2 examined children’s positive emotions in response to having helped others (the ‘warm-glow’ effect of sharing) and in addition assessed the degree to which this effect is tied to the fulfillment of others’ needs. In paper 3 the authors assessed children’s immediate emotional consequences in response to being helped on changes in their upper-body posture.
In each presentation, the authors used innovative paradigms including measures of children’s facial expressions (Papers 1 and 2) and motion sensor technology (Paper 3) to address children’s prosociality from multiple theoretical perspectives: The child as an observer (Paper 1), children as active helpers (Papers 1 and 2), and children as recipients of help (Paper 3). Together these papers address the core theme of the symposium and provide novel insights into the motivational roots of children’s prosociality.

Sub Unit

• Moral Development

Chair

• Robert Hepach, Max Planck Institute, Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig

Discussant

• Markus Paulus, University of Munich

Individual Presentations

• Links between Empathy for Others in Distress during Infancy and Subsequent Prosocial Behaviors - Presenting Author: Maayan Davidov, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Carolyn Zahn-Waxler, University of Wisconsin Madison; Ronit Roth-Hanania, Department of Psychology, Tel Aviv-Yaffo Academic College; Yael Paz, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Tal Orlitsky, School of Social Work, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Florina Uzefovsky, Department of Psychology, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

• Quantifying positive affect associated with acts of generosity in young children - Presenting Author: Kristin Leimgruber, Department of Psychology, Harvard University; Felix Warneken, Harvard University

• Being helped elevates children’s body posture - Presenting Author: Robert Hepach, Max Planck Institute, Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig; Michael Tomasello, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology