Beyond Good and Evil: What Motivations Underlie Children’s Prosocial Behavior?

TY - JOUR

T1 - Beyond Good and Evil

T2 - What Motivations Underlie Children’s Prosocial Behavior?

AU - Martin, Alia

AU - Olson, Kristina R.

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2015

PY - 2015/3/16

Y1 - 2015/3/16

N2 - Researchers have proposed different accounts of the development of prosocial behavior in children. Some have argued that behaviors like helping and sharing must be learned and reinforced; others propose that children have an initially indiscriminate prosocial drive that declines and becomes more selective with age; and yet others contend that even children’s earliest prosocial behaviors share some strategic motivations with the prosociality of adults (e.g., reputation enhancement, social affiliation). We review empirical and observational research on children’s helping and sharing behaviors in the first 5 years of life, focusing on factors that have been found to influence these behaviors and on what these findings suggest about children’s prosocial motivations. We use the adult prosociality literature to highlight parallels and gaps in the literature on the development of prosocial behavior. We address how the evidence reviewed bears on central questions in the developmental psychology literature and propose that children’s prosocial behaviors may be driven by multiple motivations not easily captured by the idea of intrinsic or extrinsic motivation and may be selective quite early in life.

AB - Researchers have proposed different accounts of the development of prosocial behavior in children. Some have argued that behaviors like helping and sharing must be learned and reinforced; others propose that children have an initially indiscriminate prosocial drive that declines and becomes more selective with age; and yet others contend that even children’s earliest prosocial behaviors share some strategic motivations with the prosociality of adults (e.g., reputation enhancement, social affiliation). We review empirical and observational research on children’s helping and sharing behaviors in the first 5 years of life, focusing on factors that have been found to influence these behaviors and on what these findings suggest about children’s prosocial motivations. We use the adult prosociality literature to highlight parallels and gaps in the literature on the development of prosocial behavior. We address how the evidence reviewed bears on central questions in the developmental psychology literature and propose that children’s prosocial behaviors may be driven by multiple motivations not easily captured by the idea of intrinsic or extrinsic motivation and may be selective quite early in life.

KW - children

KW - helping

KW - motivation

KW - prosocial behavior

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U2 - 10.1177/1745691615568998

DO - 10.1177/1745691615568998

M3 - Article

C2 - 25910387

SN - 1745-6916

VL - 10

SP - 159

EP - 175

JO - Perspectives on Psychological Science

JF - Perspectives on Psychological Science

IS - 2

ER -