The Early Emergence of Guilt-Motivated Prosocial Behavior
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2016-11-01
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© 2016 The Authors. Child Development © 2016 Society for Research in Child Development, Inc.Guilt serves vital prosocial functions: It motivates transgressors to make amends, thus restoring damaged relationships. Previous developmental research on guilt has not clearly distinguished it from sympathy for a victim or a tendency to repair damage in general. The authors tested 2- and 3-year-old children (N = 62 and 64, respectively) in a 2 × 2 design, varying whether or not a mishap caused harm to someone and whether children themselves caused that mishap. Three-year-olds showed greatest reparative behavior when they had caused the mishap and it caused harm, thus showing a specific effect of guilt. Two-year-olds repaired more whenever harm was caused, no matter by whom, thus showing only an effect of sympathy. Guilt as a distinct motivator of prosocial behavior thus emerges by at least 3 years.
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Vaish, Amrisha, Malinda Carpenter and Michael Tomasello (2016). The Early Emergence of Guilt-Motivated Prosocial Behavior. Child Development, 87(6). pp. 1772–1782. 10.1111/cdev.12628 Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/13637.
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Michael Tomasello
Major research interests in processes of social cognition, social learning, cooperation, and communication from developmental, comparative, and cultural perspectives. Current theoretical focus on processes of shared intentionality. Empirical research mainly with human children from 1 to 4 years of age and great apes.
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