Within our class we have been studying aggression and how individuals become aggressive. The flip side of this is when an individual acts out to help others, known as prosocial behavior. I believe that prosocial behavior will develop over late childhood and adolelscence, and have found evidence to support it. The first article I found was one by Carole Tabor and David R. Shaffer in 1981, which examines children betwen the ages of 5 and 10 and how they interact with others prosocially. The other was a twin study done by Jane Scourfield, Bethan John, Neilson Martin, and Peter McGuffin using parent and teacher reports of 89 female and 74 male monozygotic (MZ) and 50 female and 52 male dizygotic (DZ) twins. I then divised my own method for testing this hypothesis, which will be described later on.
The first experiment by Tabor and Shaffer had 3 hypotheses that they wanted to test: 1) "Older children wil share more of their valuable resources and be quicker to assist a distressed peer than will younger children," 2) Chilcren will share more valuable resources with and be quicker to assist and attractive as opposed to an unattractive peer. Moreover, the impact of the per;s atractiveness on prosocial behavior wil be greater for older than for younger children," and finally, 3) "Children wil be quicker to assist a peer whose need for assistance is substantial as compared with a per whose ned for help is minimal. Moreover, the impact of the peer's need for assistance on helping behavior will be greater for older than for younger children." The method they decided to use to test their hypotheses involved 20 male and 20 females elementary age students, organized by grade level; first, second and third graders. The children were then randomly placed into groups of attractive vs unattractive peer and high vs low need for help along with being split by age and sex. Each child is told that they are to be in a drawing contest and their partner is of the same age and sex as them but they are either really good and they will win for sure or really bad and there is no chance for them to win, they are also told that there is a prize at the end. For participating each child is given 5 pennies and then told that they don't have enough for their partner so if they want they may give some pennies to their peer. Then an accident is staged in the room where their partner supposibly is with a recording of either a child getting hurt a lot or not very much. Finally the child is told that they will play a game and get a surprise at the end, when the game is actually a test of the child's empathic abilities and role-taking skills.
Once the experiment was finished the results found by Tabor and Shaffer mostly supported their hypotheses with only a few exceptions. The study found that the peers with a high need for help were percied as hurt much worse and in need of more assistance, but peer attractive only had a weak correlation to the time it took for a child to respond when they were hurt. Also, the older children (3rd grade) shared more of their pennies on average with their peer than 2nd graders who, in turn, shared more than the 1st graders. This however did not provide support for hypothesis 2 becuase attractiveness did not play a role in sharing. The children responded faster to peers who they thought were hurt more however, helping patterns didn't change with the older children. The final test found that all three age levels were reasonably good at reading other's emotions and children who showed more empathic ability shared more pennies with their partner. In each test the older children were shown to be more prosocially developed than the younger, Tabor and Shaffer argue that this is because they have had more time to learn prosocial behaviors and using them has more of an impact on their lives than the younger children. While this study did not test adolescence I still feel that it is helpful in showing that my hypothesis may be true.
The second study I read, by Scourfield, John, Martin, and McGuffin, was simply based on parent and teacher reports done on twin, monozygotic and dizygotic. The aim of their study was to study genetic and environmental factors on prosocial behavior. The study was done on a group of 89 MZ females, 74 MZ males, 50 DZ females, 52 DZ males and 115 opposite-sex DZ pairs between the ages of 5 and 17. Each pair's parents were sent a "Strength and Difficulties Questionanaire" that measured abroad range of behaviors and emotional problems of each child using 25 items with 5 subscale scores: conduct problems, prosocial behavior, hyperactivity, emotional symptoms and peer problems. Our authors also took into account any biases that a teacher or parent may have in rating their child's prosocial behavior and factored it (as best as they could) out of the data. Both reports turned out higher prosocial scores in females, rather than in males, but in younger children (ages 5-11) the sex differences were more based on teacher reports. Mean scores for MZ pairs were the same as those for DZ pairs of twins in both reports. From parent reports they found that older children's influences were more genetic and younger children's influences are more environmental, while there is a trend here, it is not significant enough to be measured when equaled throughout age groups. The same pattern emerged for the teacher reports as well, but remained significant after constraining the influences to be equal across age groups.
Both studies seem to show that as children age they become more prosocial, which is consistent with my hypothesis that as children and adolescents develop they become more prosocial. The method I have chosen to test this hypothesis is an observational study. My associate and I will go to WHitehall high and middles school during an average school day. Between classes we will walk through each grade's designated hall of lockers and drop and armful of books and papers. We will be looking for how many individuals attempt to assist us, to what extent we recieve assistance, and how long it takes to achieve a response, along with any other interesting behaviors that occur. The age groups that will be studied include ages 14-15 (freshman), 15-16 (sophomores), 16-17 (juniors), and 17-18 (seniors. Unfortunately the senior class knows us personally, so it may be more beneficial to study 13-14 yr olds in 8th grade and maybe even 12-13 yr olds in 7th grade. Hopefully my findings will match those of Tabor and Shaffer.
Citation:
1) Tabor, C., & Shaffer, D. (1981). EFFECTS OF AGE ON BENEFACTOR, ATTRACTIVENESS OF THE RECIPIENT, AND THE RECIPIENT'S NEED FOR ASSISTANCE ON PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOR IN CHILDREN'S DYADS. Social Behavior & Personality: An International Journal, 9(2), 163
2) Scourfield, J., John, B., Martin, N., & McGuffin, P. (2004). The development of prosocial behaviour in children and adolescents: a twin study. Journal of Child Psychology & Psychiatry, 45(5), 927-935
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