Thinking of me: Self-focus reduces sharing and helping in seven- to eight-year-olds

Weltzien, Sandra; Marsh, Lauren E.; Hood, Bruce

Abstract

By 7-to 8-years of age, most children readily adhere to prosocial norms aimed at benefiting others through giving up time and effort (helping) or resources (sharing). Two studies explored whether sharing and helping by 7-to 8-year olds (N = 180) could be influenced by priming children’s attention on themselves or their friends through a semi-structured interview. Results revealed that self-priming led to reductions in both sharing and helping compared to friendship-priming or a control condition. These findings are considered as indicative of the fragile state of prosocial behaviours at this age that can be easily shifted towards more selfish biases by simple priming.

Citation

Weltzien, S., Marsh, L. E., & Hood, B. (2018). Thinking of me: Self-focus reduces sharing and helping in seven- to eight-year-olds. PLoS ONE, 13(1), Article e0189752. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0189752

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Dec 3, 2017
• Online Publication Date: Jan 10, 2018
• Publication Date: Jan 10, 2018
• Deposit Date: Dec 11, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: Dec 11, 2018
• Journal: PLOS ONE
• Electronic ISSN: 1932-6203
• Publisher: Public Library of Science
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 13
• Issue: 1
• Article Number: e0189752
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0189752
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1403882
• Publisher URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0189752