The development of prosocial behaviour

What is prosocial behaviour Eisenberg a muse 1989

Voluntary actions which are intended to benefit another individual or group

e.g sharing helping comforting cooperation

Helping behaviour- full cookie

Any action that benefits someone else, regardless of the motive. This includes being forced to help, getting paid to help, or helping just to look good.

Alturism

The purest form of prosocial behaviour. Helping others purely out of genuine concern for their wellbeing, with no expectation of personal reward and often at a personal cost to yourself.

First theory of prosocial behaviour

1- the sociobiological approach

sociobiological approach..The selfish gene (Wilson 1975, Hamilton 1964)

Extension of Dawkins evolutionary theory, claiming that prosodical behaviour is only selfish behaviour in disguise.

• Delayed reciprocal altruism (Trivers, 1971)

An evolutionary explanation for helping non-relatives: individuals help others at a personal cost today because it increases the likelihood that the recipient will return the favor in the future, boosting mutual survival.

second theory

Neurobiology and developmental approaches

Role of oxytocin

A hormone across species that enhances the salience (noticeability) of social cues. Research shows it increases trust , boosts emotional empathy (Hurlemann et al., 2010), and increases prosocial charity donations (Marsh et al., 2015).

Limitations / "dark side" of Oxytocin (OXT): How context and individual differences modulate its effects

Oxytocin does not universally increase kindness; its effects depend on context and individual traits.

It can increase envy and gloating in competitive games (Shamay-Tsoory et al., 2009), reduce trust/cooperation in people with Borderline Personality Disorder (Bartz et al., 2011), and boost in-group favoritism alongside out-group bias (De Dreu et al., 2011).

Developmental trajectory of prosocial behaviour (Hoffman, 2000)

Infancy: React to others' distress but cannot separate others' emotions from their own. 2)

~Age 2: Differentiate self from others, but help is egocentric (offering what comforts themselves).

3) Years 2–3: Frequency and variety of prosocial acts increase, though still inconsistent.

4) Preschool to adolescence: Prosocial behaviour steadily increases.

Instrumental Helping

helping another achieve an action based goal

Young children can help another achieve a practical goal from 12-14 months and

they appear sensitive to another persons goal-directed behaviour even when the goal is not explicitly requested— one of the earliest forms of prosocial behaviour

What does instrumental helping tell us about a Childs socia kunderstandongs

• Understanding another’s goal?

• Do they have empathy and does their behaviour reflect an emotion; repose to the other

• Alturism?

Nueordevelopment of key brain regions

• 1) Social brain regions continue maturing until young adulthood.

• 2) Helps researchers identify early precursors (building blocks) of complex prosocial behaviours

• . 3) Early competencies can serve different functions than later ones (e.g., a newborn's automatic empathic cry is different from genuine empathic concern at 8–10 months).

Grossmann, Missana, & Krol (2018): Early precursors of prosocial behaviour

Using fNIRS brain imaging, researchers found that stronger attention to fearful faces (linked to activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex / dlPFC) at 7 months significantly predicted higher prosocial helping behaviour at 14 months, whereas attention to happy or angry faces did not.

This findings mean

This finding means that babies who pay close attention to scared or distressed faces at 7 months old grow up to be more helpful toddlers at 14 months old—and we can see this early "care-noticing" system working in the front of their brains.

Paulus et al 2013

different neural patterns associated to each task

Right temporal activation- instrumental helpig

Leeft frontaal cortical activation - comfortonig

But negative association between helping and comforting

Prosocial development from childhood to adolescence (Eisenberg et al., 2015; Hay & Cook, 2007)

Evidence for an overall increase in prosociality from childhood to adolescence is mixed (Eisenberg et al., 2015), depending on the context and type of helping. Prosocial behaviour during this period is strongly shaped by gender norms, close friendships, and social expectations (Hay & Cook, 2007).

Do, McCormick and Telzer (2019)

fMRI study of 8–16-year-olds playing a real money game (costly giving vs. non-costly giving).

Behaviourally, there were no age differences in generosity.

Neurally, early adolescents showed higher brain activation—specifically in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and striatum

This proves

proving brain processing changes with age even when outward prosocial behaviour does not.

What is Theory of Mind (ToM)? (Premack & Woodruff, 1978)

The ability to understand that yourself and other people have internal mental states—such as beliefs, desires, intentions, emotions, and knowledge—that can differ from your own.

How does Theory of Mind relate to prosocial behaviour? (Imuta et al., 2016)

Imuta et al.’s (2016) meta-analysis found a small but reliable positive correlation (r = .19) between Theory of Mind and prosociality—better perspective-taking slightly increases helping, sharing, and comforting.

Which brain region links Theory of Mind to helping behaviour? (Waytz et al., 2012

The dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC)—a brain area used for thinking about other people's minds. Stronger dmPFC activity predicts higher real-world helping behaviour.

Empathy according to Batson et al 2016

Other oriented emotional response—(It is a feeling directed toward the other person (caring about them), rather than feeling stressed or panicked for yourself.)

elected by (triggered when u see what thye’re going through)

and congruent with the perceived welfare of someone else- (how well or badly you think they are doing. For example, if you see someone hurting or struggling, you feel warm concern, tenderness, or sadness for them; if you see them succeeding, you feel happy for them.)

Empathy as key driver shaping our social lives by motivating prodigal behaviour

emotion plays crucial casual role in electing prosocial behaviour, both in human and non human animal

Empathtic concern and personal distress

Although relying on dissociable brain systems predict protocol behaviour

Imitation and prosocial behaviour(Van Baaren, Holland et al., 2004)

Ppl who’ve been mimicked were more helpful and donated more to charity than those who were not mimicked

Van Baaren et al., 2003

Customers give larger tips to waitress who

repeated the order of the customers verbatim

5 bullet points summarising integrating levels of explanation

volutionary: adaptive value of cooperation

• Neurobiological: oxytocin, PFC development

• Socio-cognitive: empathy, ToM, imitation

• Together they shape prosocial behaviour across development

• Cross-Cultural and Digital Prosociality:

o Cultural norms influence helping and sharing behaviour

o Online contexts show new forms of prosociality (e.g., digital

empathy, crowdfunding)

3

Prosocial behaviour emerges early and evolves with brain and

cognitive development

• Multiple influences: biology, context, and social cognition

• Continued research integrates neuroscience with social psychology