Competence-based helping: Children's consideration of need when providing others with help

Jellie Sierksma, Kristin Shutts

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

When and how other people's needs influence children's helping is poorly understood. Here we focused on whether children use information about other people's competence in their helping. In Study 1 (N = 128 4- to 8-year-old children), children could provide help to both an incompetent target and a competent target by pushing levers. Whereas older children helped incompetent targets more than competent targets, younger children (<5 years) helped both targets equally. Two further experiments (N = 20 and N = 28) revealed that 4-year-olds understood that the incompetent person needed more help and also understood how they could help. Thus, young children do not, like older children, give more help to those who need it the most. We discuss potential developmental changes toward competence-based helping.

Original languageEnglish
Article number105206
Pages (from-to)1-18
Number of pages18
JournalJournal of Experimental Child Psychology
Volume210
Early online date13 Jun 2021
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Oct 2021

Funding

FundersFunder number
National Institute of Child Health and Human DevelopmentU54HD090256
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek446-16-011

    Keywords

    • Prosocial behavior
    • Social cognition
    • Moral development
    • Competence
    • Need
    • Fairness

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'Competence-based helping: Children's consideration of need when providing others with help'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this