Prosocial Behavior in Childhood Through Early Adolescence
Prosocial behavior in childhood often begins with questions of sharing and fairness. From age 12- to 18- months, children begin to display prosocial behavior in presenting and giving their toys to their parents, without promoting or being reinforced by praise. The development of prosocial behavior continues throughout the second year of life, as children begin to gain a moral understanding of the world. As obedience to societal standards becomes important, children’s ability to exhibit prosocial behavior strengthens, with occurrence and diversity of these behaviors increasing with age and cognitive maturity. What is important developmentally is that the child has developed a belief that sharing is an obligatory part of a social relationship and involves a question of right and wrong.
Parents can set examples that children carry into their interactions and communication with peers, but parents are not present during all of their children's peer exchanges. The day-to-day constructions of fairness standards is done by children in collaboration and negotiation with each other.
A study by Nantel-Vivier et al. used a multi-informant model to investigate the development of prosocial behaviour in both Canadian and Italian adolescents aged 10–15. Their findings have indicated that, in early adolescence, although empathy and moral reasoning continue to advance, the development of prosocial behaviors reaches a plateau. Theories for this change in development suggest that it is the result of more individualized and selective prosocial behaviors. During adolescence, youth begin to focus these behaviors toward their peer groups and/or affiliations.
Consistent with previous analyses, this study also found a tendency toward higher prosocial behaviors in young adolescent girls compared to their male classmates. The earlier maturation in females may be a possible explanation for this disparity. A more recent study that focused on the effects of pubertal timing found that early maturation in adolescents has a positive impact on prosocial behaviors. While their findings apply to both genders, this study found a much more pronounced effect in males. This suggests that earlier onset of puberty has a positive correlation with the development of prosocial behaviors.
Read more about this topic: Prosocial Behavior
Famous quotes containing the words behavior, childhood, early and/or adolescence:
“One cannot demand of a scholar that he show himself a scholar everywhere in society, but the whole tenor of his behavior must none the less betray the thinker, he must always be instructive, his way of judging a thing must even in the smallest matters be such that people can see what it will amount to when, quietly and self-collected, he puts this power to scholarly use.”
—G.C. (Georg Christoph)
“I long for scenes where man has never trod A place where woman never smiled or wept There to abide with my Creator God And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept, Untroubling and untroubled where I lie The grass below, above, the vaulted sky.”
—John Clare (1793–1864)
“I believe that if we are to survive as a planet, we must teach this next generation to handle their own conflicts assertively and nonviolently. If in their early years our children learn to listen to all sides of the story, use their heads and then their mouths, and come up with a plan and share, then, when they become our leaders, and some of them will, they will have the tools to handle global problems and conflict.”
—Barbara Coloroso (20th century)
“It is as if, to every period of history, there corresponded a privileged age and a particular division of human life: “youth” is the privileged age of the seventeenth century, childhood of the nineteenth, adolescence of the twentieth.”
—Philippe Ariés (20th century)