If you Harm, Will I Help you? Past Events Bias Children’s and Adults’ Prosocial Decision Making

• In Event: 3-229 - The Role of Middle Childhood in Social-Cognitive Development: New Evidence From Behavioral and Neural Studies

Integrative Statement

Between 4 and 10 years of age, children increasingly judge that people’s prior actions predict how they will behave in the future (e.g., Heyman, 2009), and they show advances in awareness that people’s past experiences influence how they feel, think, and make decisions in the social world (e.g., Lagattuta, 2014). The current study investigated children’s and adults’ beliefs about whether they will help or befriend those who have caused prior harm. These are complex judgments as humans must not only choose whether to act prosocially towards prosocial others, but also decide how they will treat individuals with a tarnished, antisocial past.

Four- to 10-year-olds and adults (N=197) responded to four trials, each featuring a character who experienced three emotional events caused by a perpetrator. For half of the trials, perpetrators did more harm than good (mostly bad; one positive and two negative past actions); for the other half, they did more good than harm (mostly good; one negative and two positive past actions). Participants (1) evaluated each perpetrator as nice or mean. They also judged whether they would (2) befriend or not befriend, and (3) help or not help individuals who behaved like the perpetrators. All perpetrators displayed both positive and negative behaviors so that participants always had to reason about their reactions to those who fell short of a prosocial ideal.

A 4 (age: 4/5, 6/7, 8/10, adults) x 2 (past: mostly bad, mostly good) x 3 (judgment: trait, befriend, help) repeated measures ANOVA on the proportion of trials that participants made positive judgments resulted in all possible two-way interactions, Fs>5.11, ps<.002, ηp²s>.07 (Figure 1.1). All age groups more often made positive trait evaluations and anticipated befriending and helping those who had exhibited mostly good versus mostly bad behaviors (ps<.001). Across past type, 4- to 7-year-olds more frequently rated perpetrators as nice than did adults (ps<.021; 6/7>8/10, p=.039); however, there were no developmental differences in friendship decisions (ps>.154). Helping reflected the most striking age-related changes: Within childhood (4/5<8/10) and between childhood and adulthood, there were significant increases in the frequency that individuals anticipated aiding those who exhibited occasional or mostly antisocial prior behavior (ps<.003).

Inspection of judgment dyads at the individual level revealed further developmental continuities and differences (Table 1.1). When perpetrators had acted mostly good, the majority of children and adults positively aligned all judgment pairs (nice-befriend; nice-help; befriend-help). Likewise, when perpetrators had exhibited mostly antisocial behaviors, the majority of children and adults expected convergence between trait evaluations and friendship (mean-not befriend). What changed the most with age was expecting helping to misalign with traits and friendship choices when perpetrators had mostly harmed: The predominant pattern for adults, but not children, was to anticipate helping those whom they perceived to be mean and whom they would not befriend.

Together, results indicate that from 4 to 10 years of age and between childhood and adulthood, individuals increasingly recognize the challenges inherent in prosocial decision making. Helping is not only reserved for those deemed nice and worthy of friendship.

Authors

• Kristin Hansen Lagattuta, University of California, Davis
  Presenting Author

• Hannah J Kramer, University of California, Davis
  Non-Presenting Author

• Karen Hjortsvang Lara, University of California, Davis
  Non-Presenting Author

• Katie Kennedy, University of California, Davis
  Non-Presenting Author