Poster #127 - Maternal structuring of daily chores and the development of toddlers’ prosocial behavior

• In Event: 3-106 - Poster Session 11
  In Poster Session: PS 11 Section - Moral Development

Integrative Statement

Currently, there is a lively debate in which way the emergence of prosocial behavior in toddlers’ second year is co-constituted by social and interactional factors (Dahl, 2018; Kärtner, 2018). This presentation addresses this question from a transactional perspective. More specifically, this longitudinal study explores the bidirectional relationships between maternal structuring and toddlers’ helping behavior between 12 and 24 months of age. Based on the work of Dahl (2015) and Giner-Torréns & Kärtner (2017), we assume positive concurrent and longitudinal relationships between maternal structuring and children’s helping at younger ages that turn into increasingly negative concurrent and longitudinal relationships between structuring and children’s helping at older ages. While the former would show a constitutive effect of parenting on child development, the latter would indicate a compensatory function of parenting.
Based on a cross-lagged correlational study design (N = 30, from 12- to 24 months in 3-month intervals), maternal structuring was assessed based on a parkour of household chores in the lab that the mother was asked to do with the child (i.e., put paper balls in bin; put books in shelf; fold laundry; hang laundry). Based on 10s-intervals, the occurrence of specific types of structuring were coded, namely guiding attention, requesting, explaining, modeling, and praise. Toddlers’ helping behavior was assessed independently of mother-infant interaction and based on three standardized tasks in which children could spontaneously engage in helping an experimenter who does a chore (i.e., put dropped objects back on tray; set table; clear table).
Preliminary findings show that there were meaningful associations between maternal structuring, defined as the proportion of intervals with any type of structuring, and children’s helping, defined as amount of help provided. Most importantly, there were positive and significant concurrent associations between structuring and helping at 12 months that faded away across the second year of life.
Overall, these findings provide partial support for the important role of maternal structuring for the emergence and early development of helping behavior and advance the debate on the co-constitutive role that interactional processes play for the development of helping in the second year.

Authors

• Joscha Kärtner, University of Münster
  Presenting Author

• Nils Schuhmacher, University of Münster
  Non-Presenting Author

• Marta Giner Torréns, University of Münster
  Non-Presenting Author