Prosocial Development in Youth

Children today are being exposed to complex external influences from very early ages. Children consume or are exposed to a dizzying array of media, digital content, and delivery platforms that just 20 years ago may have seemed like science fiction. According to Strasburger (2009)

“On average, children and adolescents spend more than 6 hours a day with media—more time than in formal classroom instruction. In addition, US youth have unprecedented access to media (two-thirds have a television set in their bedrooms, half have a VCR or DVD player, half have a video game console, and almost one-third have Internet access or a computer”  (pp. 2265)

Through all of this they are still expected, for the most, part to develop and internalize traditional norms of responsible and socially adaptive behavior. This broad expectation includes children’s behavior towards others; more specifically they are expected to behave in a way that is not harmful and ideally benefits individuals other than themselves. This is a daunting task even for adults and forms the basis of what is described as prosocial behavior.

 To study the emergence of prosocial behavior we must first agree on a definition. There are several viable options within the literature. It is a term too broad to study however without proper clarification.  “Voluntary behavior intended to benefit another” (Mussen & Eisenberg 2001 pp. 105).

We will refer to behavior that is prosocial as any behavior that shares or achieves the goal identified by Mussen and Eisenberg (2001). There is not complete agreement in the literature about the term however. The literature also refers to prosocial behavior as a behavior that is for the benefit of others without benefit to self. We will differentiate this behavior from our definition of prosocial behavior and label this kind of prosocial behavior altruistic behavior. Necessarily all altruistic behavior is prosocial behavior but not all prosocial behavior is altruistic. There is often a benefit of some kind to the individual for engaging in prosocial behavior whether it is cultural reinforcement, conditioned reinforcement, or direct reward (House et al 2013).  So when do children begin to act in prosocial ways? When does prosocial behavior emerge? To what extent are they related to other developmental components such as genetic and ecological concerns? Furthermore how has the relatively recent emergence of the digital environment affected the development of prosocial behavior given the cultural relativity of the definition?

There are many aspects of development that are shaped by culture. Gross motor development for example can be influenced by culture (Angulo-Barroso et. al.  2002). Studies of development in infants across different cultures found significant variability of the onset of certain gross motor skills, including walking (Santos, Gabbard & Goncalves 2001) cross cultural samples Asians who were seen as more protective of infants were more likely to hold their children and less likely to stimulate walking behaviors (Keller et al 2006). This parenting style does not promote early learning and may delay other developmentally stimulating activates that come from walking including a better ability to explore one’s environment (Santos, Gabbard & Goncalves 2001).

The emergence of prosocial behaviors in different cultures may not always take the same form although there are often cross-cultural parallels that transcend cultural differences. For example the personal cost of prosocial behavior is much more important and more universally predictive of the likelihood of engaging in prosocial   behavior than culture in early childhood (house et al 2013). As individuals age the cultural influences of norms and expectation become more prominent but cost is still a factor in prosocial behavior (House et al 2013)

Prosocial behaviors can come in many forms. Svetlova, Nichols and Brownell (2010) identify three distinct ways in which prosocial behavior can be exhibited. The first is through instrumental engagements. This is prosocial behavior of actions; helping someone pick up a heavy object for example or find a lost object. The second is prosocial behavior of empathetic or sympathetic support. This is prosocial behavior utilizing emotion. The third is prosocial behavior of altruistic nature in which individuals give of themselves without any gain strictly for the benefit of another. Some of these behaviors emerge earlier than others. This is due both because of lack of ability and due to learning. The first identifiable behaviors that can be labeled prosocial acts occur very young indeed. “Human children begin to behave prosocially very early in life, before 2 years of age. Studies have documented 1-year-olds’ abilities to comfort others in distress, participate in household tasks, and help adults” (Svetlova, Nichols & Brownell 2010 pp. 1814). Prosocial behavior does not develop as a cumulatively learned skill however and as such does not emerge and become perfected over time. In fact increases prosocial behavior at times even appears to have little if any correlation with the passage of time. It is in fact a very complex interactional construct that depends on the confluence of multiple factors of differing importance, relevance and interactional effect. Prosocial behavior itself is such a complex topic that different types of prosocial behaviors emerge at different times.