Prosocial and antisocial behaviour

What is the definition of prosocial behaviour?

A behaviour that benefits someone else at a cost to the self

Through which mechanisms could prosociality evolve?

Reciprocity and indirect reciprocity

Which researchers investigated whether 18mo infants are helpful by presenting them with situations where an experimenter needed help?

Warneken & Tomasello (2006)

What are the 3 main prosocial emotions?

Empathy, Sympathy, and Guilt

What is the definition of empathy?

Feeling as others feel

Simner (1971) is cited for investigating empathy in infants. What did this study involve?

Investigating if infants cry when they hear another infant crying

What is the definition of sympathy?

A feeling of concern for others

Zahn-Waxler et al. (1992) investigated infants' responses to their mothers' distress to study the origins of sympathy. What behaviours were coded as prosocial?

Physical comfort, Verbal comfort, Verbal advice, Helping, and Sharing

According to Zahn-Waxler et al.'s (1992) findings, how did infants' prosocial responding change over the second year of life?

Infants showed concern for others, and prosocial responding increased and became more diverse with age

Vaish et al. (2009) investigated whether young children can sympathise even in the absence of overt emotional cues. What did they find about 18-month-old infants' likelihood to help an experimenter who lost her balloon?

Infants were more likely to help if they had previously observed someone be mean to her

What is guilt?

An aversive emotion that follows the realization that one has harmed another person

While often viewed as toxic, guilt is said to play a vital role in regulating social interactions. How does it do this in adults?

Guilt motivates reparative and prosocial behaviors

Vaish et al. (2016) tested the development of guilt as a motivator. What did they find regarding 3-year-old children's tendency to repair damage after causing a mishap?

Three-year-old children were more likely to try to repair the damage when the mishap was their fault

Vaish et al. (2016) found that guilt appears to emerge as a distinct motivator of prosocial behaviour by what age?

By at least 3 years

Tangney & Dearing (2002) studied the consequences of guilt. What did they find about fifth-grade children who were prone to guilt?

They were less likely to be arrested, convicted, and incarcerated in adolescence, more likely to practice safe sex, and less likely to abuse drugs

How might parents influence children's prosocial behaviour, according to Hammond (2011)?

Through modelling of empathic and responsive behaviour and through direct instruction

According to Rheingold (1982), how else do parents socialize prosociality?

By scaffolding their children's participation in everyday household tasks and chores

Zahn-Waxler et al. (1992) identified a robust contributor to empathic concern and prosocial behaviour in 1- and 2-year-olds. What was it?

Parents’ warm and sensitive responding to a child's needs

Brownell et al. (2013) investigated parental mental state talk. What type of helping did parents' mental state talk predict?

Emotion-based helping, which requires understanding the recipient's internal state

What is the definition of aggression?

Behaviour that intentionally harms other people by inflicting pain or injury

How is relational aggression defined?

Behaviour that intentionally upsets another person, including criticising, ridiculing, telling tales, social excluding, or calling names

Crick et al. (1997) examined aggression in 3- and 4-year-olds. What was the relationship found between children high in overt and relational aggression and prosocial behaviour?

Children high in overt and relational aggression were low in prosocial behaviour

Crick et al. (1997) also found a link between aggression levels and peer acceptance. What was this link?

Children who were particularly aggressive tended to be rejected by their peers

According to Coie and Dodge (1998), negative social experiences may lead children to develop a hostile attribution bias. What does this mean?

Children expect other people to be hostile and this primes them to act aggressively

Federman (1998) found evidence regarding violence content on children's TV programmes in the US. What percentage was reported to contain violence?

66%

Moffitt et al. (1996) studied extreme anti-social behaviour in boys from Dunedin. What difficult temperament trait did they find was present at age 3 in the consistently anti-social sub-sample?

Being irritable

Hinshaw et al. (1993) associated extreme anti-social behaviour in childhood and adolescence with which disorder?

Attention deficit disorder

What are the key characteristics of callous-unemotional traits?

Limited empathy, a lack of guilt, and shallow affect

According to Viding et al.'s (2005) twin study, antisocial behaviour with high levels of callous-unemotional traits was found to be strongly influenced by what factor?

It was strongly heritable

callous-unemotional traits may be malleable. How do children with these traits respond to warm parenting?

They respond positively to warm parenting

Dadds et al. (2012) suggest that children with high levels of callous-unemotional traits might benefit from training in what areas?

Emotional literacy and emotional recognition

How can morality be thought of in terms of judgment, behaviour, and emotion?

Moral judgment is distinguishing right from wrong, Moral behaviour is acting on that distinction, and Moral emotions are feeling pride in virtuous conduct or guilt/shame over violations

Which developmental psychologist is closely linked to the study of moral judgment and used moral dilemmas like the stories of John and Henry?

Piaget

Piaget found a difference in how younger and older children judge moral dilemmas involving negative outcomes. What was this difference?

Younger children tend to judge the negative outcome more harshly, while older children tend to judge the negative intention more harshly

According to Piaget, what governs younger children's morality, and what develops with age and peer interaction?

Younger morality is governed by respect for adults’ rules; with age and peer interaction, a morality of cooperation develops

What did Kohlberg use to study children's moral judgment, similar to Piaget?

Moral dilemmas, like the famous example about Heinz

While higher cognitive development is associated with higher moral reasoning, what is a critique of Kohlberg's stages regarding action?

Higher cognitive development does not automatically lead to more moral actions

What is one significant critique of Kohlberg's stages based on the samples used?

The samples were not representative (e.g., primarily male, Western)

How might Kohlberg's tasks underestimate the abilities of young children?

They focus on verbally demanding legalistic dilemmas

Hamlin et al. (2007) investigated signs of moral evaluation in much younger children. How did they adapt their methods compared to traditional approaches like Kohlberg's?

They removed verbal demands to create scenarios infants could understand

What social influence, besides parents, did Piaget and Kohlberg both argue was crucial for the development of moral judgment?

Negotiating with peers