Precursors of prosociality: The role of experience in the development of sharing behaviors

• In Event: 1-092 - Developing Prosociality in the First Year: Precursors and Early Forms of Helping, Sharing, and Empathy

Integrative Statement

Although it is not until the second year of life that infants perform a broad range of prosocial behaviors, precursors to prosociality emerge during the first year of life. For example, by 8-12 months of age, infants spontaneously share resources with others in naturalistic settings (Hay, 1979). Here, we present two studies aimed at understanding the role of experience and allied factors in the origins and onset of early sharing behaviors. Specifically, we investigated whether reciprocal, turn-taking object exchange experience impacts the onset of sharing behaviors, and which features of these sharing experiences facilitate subsequent sharing behaviors.

In Study 1, 7-month-old infants (N=40, Mage=7.4) participated in 2 laboratory visits to assess their sharing behavior. During the intervening 1-to 2-week period parents led infants in an intervention in which they were either encouraged to release objects into a container (control condition, n = 20), or share objects with the parent in the context of reciprocal object exchanges (sharing condition, n = 20). Parents also completed a self-report empathy measure (IRI; Davis, 1983). Findings revealed that infants in the sharing condition (but not the control condition) significantly increased their sharing from V1 to V2, t(18) = 3.06, p = .002 (Figure 1). This effect was moderated by parental empathy: parents’ empathic concern scores were positively correlated with number of shares at V2 (r = .51, p = .02).

Study 2 (N=64, Mage=7.4) replicated Study 1 and built on it by exploring why infants with more empathetic parents more readily benefited from increased sharing experience. Study 2 followed the same procedure as Study 1 with a larger sample (n = 32 per condition); a subset of parents in the sharing condition filmed their home sharing interactions.

As in Study 1, infants in the sharing condition (but not control condition) significantly increased their sharing rates from V1 to V2, t(30) = 3.32, p = .002 (Figure 1). This effect was moderated by parental empathy (r = .36; p = .04). To determine why parental empathy enhanced the effects of the sharing intervention, we coded the quantity and quality of at-home sharing interactions (Table 1).

Increased parental empathy was not related to sharing quantity (all p’s > .05), but was related to sharing quality: parents with higher empathetic concern had higher caregiver-to-baby toy transfers (r = .53, p = .035), and slightly less baby-to-caregiver toy transfers. One explanation for these findings is that parents with higher empathy scores are in general more giving, or alternatively, these parents may be more sensitive to when their baby actually intends to share a toy, thereby giving them more agency in the sharing interaction. We are conducting additional analyses to disentangle these possibilities.

In sum, these findings suggest that by 7.5 months of age, reciprocal turn-taking experiences lead to enhanced sharing behaviors, particularly for those infants whose parents are high in empathetic concern, and who, in turn, emphasize giving over getting in sharing exchanges with their infants. Together these findings help elucidate the origins of early prosocial behavior.

Authors

• Jessica Sommerville, University of Washington
  Presenting Author

• Kelsey Lucca, University of Washington
  Non-Presenting Author