PSYC528 – Prosocial Behaviour Vocabulary

Prosocial behaviour

Any voluntary, intentional act that benefits another individual, regardless of cost or benefit to the actor.

Altruism

A subtype of prosocial behaviour in which the helper derives no direct benefit and may incur a cost while aiding another.

Instrumental helping

Assisting someone in achieving a concrete goal, such as retrieving an out-of-reach object.

Informing

Providing others with useful knowledge, often through gestures like pointing, to help them achieve their goals.

Comforting

Offering emotional support to someone in distress, for example by hugging or soothing them.

Sharing

Giving up or distributing one’s own resources for the benefit of another person.

Empathy

The ability to understand and share another person’s emotional state while distinguishing it from one’s own.

Sympathy

Concern or caring for another’s welfare that often motivates comforting actions.

Personal distress

Self-focused discomfort triggered by another’s suffering; can hinder effective helping if overwhelming.

Emotional contagion

Automatic mirroring of another’s emotions without distinguishing self from other, common in infants.

Egocentric empathy

Early form of empathy where a child attempts to comfort another using strategies that would soothe themselves.

Intrinsic motivation

Drive to perform an activity for its inherent satisfaction rather than for external rewards.

Extrinsic motivation

Drive to perform an activity due to external rewards or pressures.

Overjustification effect

Decline in intrinsic motivation caused by the introduction of salient external rewards for an already enjoyable activity.

Kin selection

Evolutionary mechanism proposing individuals help genetically related others to increase shared gene survival.

Group selection

Evolutionary idea that traits benefiting the group can be favored even if costly to individual members.

Signal of fitness

Prosocial actions displayed to advertise one’s quality or status to potential mates or allies.

Reciprocity

Mutual exchange of benefits: help given today is expected to be returned in the future.

Tit for Tat

Strategy in repeated interactions of initially cooperating and then mirroring the partner’s previous move.

Distributive justice

Principle governing fair allocation of resources among individuals.

Fairness expectation

Young children’s and infants’ anticipation that resources will be divided equally between recipients.

Inequity aversion

Negative reaction to unequal resource distributions that disadvantage oneself or others.

Dictator Game

Economic task where one player unilaterally decides how to split a resource with another passive participant.

3rd-party allocation

Scenario in which a child distributes resources between two other individuals, not including themselves.

Ownership understanding

Cognitive awareness that objects can belong to oneself or others, developing in the second year of life.

Merit

Sharing rule based on who worked harder or contributed more to obtain resources.

Need

Sharing rule prioritising those who have less or who require resources more urgently.

Empathic helping

Assistance motivated by recognition of another’s emotional need rather than their instrumental goal.

Altruistic helping

Helping that involves a personal cost, such as giving up a coveted object to aid another.

Proactive helping

Intervening to fix someone’s problem before they notice it, such as picking up a dropped item unnoticed.

Bystander effect

Tendency for individuals to be less likely to help when other potential helpers are present.

Consoling behaviour

Affiliative actions like grooming or embracing shown by primates to soothe victims after aggression.

Acquisitive motivation

Desire to obtain objects or services for oneself, often underlying chimpanzee pointing gestures.

Helping task: Out-of-reach

Experimental paradigm where an adult drops an item out of reach to test infants’ tendency to help.

Helping task: Wrong means

Scenario in which an adult uses an ineffective method (e.g., wrong grasp) and infants can provide a better solution.

Helping task: Wrong result

Situation where an adult’s intended outcome fails (e.g., cabinet won’t open) and infants can intervene.

Preverbal pointing

Gesture emerging around 10–12 months where infants extend a finger to reference objects before speech.

Declarative pointing

Pointing to share interest or draw another’s attention: “Look at that!”

Imperative pointing

Pointing used as a request for an object or action: “Give me that!”

Informative pointing

Pointing that supplies useful information to another, such as the location of a missing object.

Secure attachment

Healthy caregiver–infant bond characterised by trust and responsiveness, linked to later prosociality.

Social understanding

Child’s grasp of others’ thoughts, intentions, and emotions, supporting empathy and prosocial acts.

Rivalry

Competition, often among siblings, that can influence the frequency and direction of prosocial behaviour.

Cooperative relationships

Long-term social bonds based on mutual assistance and trust.

Social learning

Acquiring behaviours or norms by observing and imitating others.

Ultra-sociality

Humans’ exceptional tendency to cooperate extensively with large numbers of unrelated individuals.

Costly sharing

Distributing resources when it reduces one’s own payoff, demonstrating altruistic concern.

Knowledge–behaviour gap

Phenomenon where children know fairness norms earlier than they enact them in their own sharing.

Ineffective reward

External incentive that reduces future prosocial behaviour, as shown when material rewards decreased infants’ helping.

Evolutionary approach to prosociality

Framework explaining helping behaviours through adaptive benefits like kin

Kin selection

Evolutionary mechanism proposing individuals help genetically related others to increase shared gene survival.

Group selection

Evolutionary idea that traits benefiting the group can be favored even if costly to individual members.

Reciprocity

Mutual exchange of benefits: help given today is expected to be returned in the future.

Tit for Tat

Strategy in repeated interactions of initially cooperating and then mirroring the partner’s previous move.

Overjustification effect

Decline in intrinsic motivation caused by the introduction of salient external rewards for an already enjoyable activity.

Social learning

Acquiring behaviours or norms by observing and imitating others.

Child Development Essay Question: Prosocial Theories

Discuss how various theoretical perspectives, including evolutionary theories (e.g., kin selection, group selection, reciprocity), social learning theory, and motivational theories (e.g., the overjustification effect), explain the development and expression of prosocial behaviour in children. Provide examples of how these theories might apply to children’s everyday interactions and interventions aimed at fostering prosociality.