The early development of prosocial behavior has become a major topic in developmental
psychology. Although findings on the early presence of prosocial tendencies in infants and …

Highlights•Studies reported no relations between different prosocial behaviors early in
development.•Different prosocial behaviors have unique antecedents and …

Caring is all around us and is manifested in diverse settings such as parenting, friendships,
volunteering, altruism, mentoring, teaching, pet adoption, and gardening. The study of …

Recent studies have provided evidence that young children already engage in sharing
behavior. The underlying social-cognitive mechanisms, however, are still under debate. In …

Altruism is a central feature of human morality. Recent research sheds light on the
development of altruism in early childhood. In this article, we propose a theoretical …

Infancy researchers often use highly simplified, animated, or otherwise artificial stimuli to
study infant's understanding of abstract concepts including “causality” or even “prosociality” …

Infants begin to help other individuals in the second year of life. However, it is still unclear
whether early helping behavior is based on an understanding of other individuals' needs …

Young children help people achieve their goals in various situations, even in the absence of
verbal requests or rewards. Such help is typically described as “indiscriminate” because …

Why do infants spontaneously begin to help others early in their second year of life?
Building on the seminal work by Warneken and Tomasello, a decade of intense research …

Children's prosociality emerges early in life, which suggests that helping others is rooted
deeply in human nature. At the same time, the motivation underlying young children's …