Poster #119 - Are young children indiscriminately helpful? The role of race in early helping, sharing, and comforting

• In Event: 3-003 - Poster Session 09
  In Poster Session: PS 09 Section - Moral Development

Integrative Statement

Researchers have discovered that toddlers (18-24 month olds) are relatively prosocial and will help adults achieve their goals, will share with adults, and will comfort distressed adults (see Laible et al., 2014). Theorists (Hay & Cook, 2007) have argued that prosocial behaviors increase during toddlerhood and are directed at a broad section of individuals but decline thereafter as children become more selective and direct such behaviors to ingroup members. Despite this claim, there is little work that examines whether during toddlerhood, children direct prosocial behavior at a broad or narrow range of targets. We tested this by examining whether the race of an adult experimenter influences the likelihood and speed with which White 18 and 24-month-old toddlers will help, share, and empathize with a stranger.

100 White toddlers who were18 or 24-months took part in the study. After a free play to familiarize the toddler with an adult experimenter, toddlers took part in four helping tasks, two sharing tasks, and one empathy task (following Warneken et al., 2006, Brownell et al., 2013, Zahn-Waxler et al., 1992). An adult experimenter (who was either White or Black) needed the toddler to help or share. Visual or verbal cues were provided across time to make the experimenter’s needs more obvious. During the empathy task, the same experimenter pretended to hit her finger on a wooden peg toy and feigned distress. The helping and sharing tasks were coded for whether children helped/shared and at which cue they helped/shared. Children’s arousal/negative emotionality was coded for the empathy task.

A series of 2 (race of experimenter) X 2 (age group) ANOVAs suggested that children helped more frequently (F(1, 89) = 4.06, p = .034) and more quickly (F(1, 89) = 3.94, p = .021) when the experimenter was White. Older children also helped more frequently (F(1, 89) = 8.84, p = .004) and more quickly (F (1, 89) = 7.62 p = .007) than younger toddlers. Race of the experimenter was unrelated to children’s sharing (F(1, 89) = .72, p = .39) or speed of sharing (F(1, 89) = 1.01, p = .32). Older children did not share more often (F(1, 89) = 1.79, p = .19), but they shared marginally quicker (F(1, 89) = 3.88, p = .05) than younger toddlers. Surprisingly, children experienced more arousal/tension and negative emotionality to the Black experimenter’s distress (F(1, 89) = 4.31, p = .04) than the White experimenter’s distress. This was qualified by a race by age interaction, in which the findings were driven only by the 24-month olds.

These findings suggest that young children’s helpful/empathic reactions were potentially influenced by the race of the experimenter, although their sharing decisions were not. This may be because there were stronger verbal supports in this task (e.g., direct requests to share) that may have overwhelmed any initial ingroup biases toddlers had. There was evidence that experimenter race was more influential in the older toddler group, supporting the idea that prosocial behavior may become more selective across time.

Authors

• Deborah June Laible, Lehigh University
  Presenting Author

• Erin Karahuta, Lehigh University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Wyntre Stout, Lehigh University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Clare A. Van Norden, Lehigh University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Gustavo Carlo, University of Missouri
  Non-Presenting Author