5 - Prosocial behaviour & Altruism Flashcards

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1
Q

what is prosocial behaviour?

A

voluntary behaviour intended to benefit another

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2
Q

what is altruism?

A

prosocial behaviour that is performed for unselfish motives

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3
Q

define the 3 features of prosociality?

A

comforting - addressing negative emotional state

helping - addressing instrumental need

sharing - addressing material need/desire

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4
Q

when do children begin to comfort others?

A

the rate with which children comfort others who are in pain or distress increases over the second year of life

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5
Q

what are individual differences regarding comforting?

A

genes influence affective response to others’ distress

those not overwhelmed by emotions they experience more likely to feel sympathy

those not inhibited more likely to act on sympathetic feelings

a child may struggle to process or act on emotions and thus seemingly show no concern or comforting

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6
Q

is comforting limited to humans?

A

chimpanzees do comfort/reassure others
but at later in development than humans

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7
Q

when do children start helping?

A

liszkowski et al.
12-month-old infants help others by pointing informatively

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8
Q

when do children demonstrate active assistance?

A

18-month-olds helps others in simple tasks where adults feigns a need for help

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9
Q

when do chimpanzees and bonobos demonstrate helping?

A

they help when it is easy for them to infer what the person’s goal is

most agree that chimpanzees display prosocial helping

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10
Q

what approaches don’t promote helping?

A

reasoning - explaining the need

praise

character attribution (“you’re so good at helping”)

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11
Q

how can caregivers promote helping?

A

pettygrove et al.
18 months - directives (“grab that toy”) and scaffolding (emotional regulation and involving child in activity)

30 months - scaffolding and negotiation (“if you tidy you can play”)

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12
Q

when do children start sharing?

A

6 months - share attention and interest

9-10 months - actively give objects

sets the stage for notions of ‘mine’ and ‘yours’

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13
Q

when do infants start resource sharing?

A

from 18 months
- initially this requires heavy scaffolding from adults
- at 18 months this behaviours is not common, rarely spontaneous and not very generous

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14
Q

when do children improve at resource sharing?

A

by 24 months infants share:
- more quickly
- more often
- with less prompting
- more generously
driven by increased social understanding

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15
Q

when do children become concerned with fairness and reciprocity?

A

around 3 years, children start to become more discerning about who should benefit from their kindness

they prefer to share with:
- friends and family
- people who have shared with them (reciprocity)
- people who have shared with others (indirect reciprocity)

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16
Q

how do children show strong reciprocity?

A

by sacrificing resources to punish, as well as to reward

robins and rocha found 3-year-olds were self-maximising (stingy) by 5 years children shared more evenly and consistently punish stingy puppet

17
Q

is strong reciprocity a universal moral tendency?

A

no
samoan children (collectivist culture) were less self-maximising and less likely to punish the stingy puppet

18
Q

evidence of non-human species sharing

A

bonobos voluntarily hand food to but not tools or toys

19
Q

evidence of altruism in children

A

toddlers help others even anonymously

2-year-olds remedy unnoticed accidents, like picking up a dropped object

proactive rather than solely reactive pro sociality

20
Q

what are the motivational sources of prosociality?

A
  • empathetic concern for others’ wellbeing
  • gratitude and guilt
  • obligation created by norms
21
Q

what is the impact of material reward on pro sociality?

A

a material reward makes children less likely to exhibit prosocial behaviour

intrinsic motivation is important for altruism

22
Q

is altruism innate?

A

Warneken & Tomasello - yes, infants display helping early in development and extrinsic motivation inhibits helping behaviour

Dahl & Paulus - no, early helping can be explained by a motivation for social interaction rather than altruism

23
Q

what is the strong prosociality hypothesis?

A

humans are prosocial, other apes are not

24
Q

what is the versatile pro sociality hypothesis?

A

humans display a range of forms of pro sociality, other apes display particular facets

25
Q
A