Intrinsic Altruism or Social Motivation—What Does Pupil Dilation Tell Us about Children's Helping Behavior?

Frontiers in Psychology

Carolina Pletti¹ 

关键词: prosocial;    pupillometry;    helping;    toddlers;    altruism;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02089

学科分类：心理学（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Experimental and observational evidence shows that children, from around 18 months of age onwards, perform actions that can be interpreted as “helping.” For instance, they hand back fallen objects or want to participate in household activities (e.g., Rheingold, 1982; Warneken and Tomasello, 2006; Brownell, 2011; Carpendale et al., 2015). A growing amount of research is trying to understand the psychological basis behind this behavior (for reviews see Paulus, 2014; Brownell, 2016; see also Warneken, 2015, for an evolutionary perspective). For example, is young children's “helping” due to an interest in the wellbeing of others? Or does it reflect a motivation to interact with other people and to be involved in their actions? In order to understand what drives children's helping, a number of recent studies have used pupil dilation as a measure of children's arousal (Hepach et al., 2012, 2016a,b), concluding that children's motivation to help is intrinsically altruistic. This opinion piece aims at re-examining those findings, suggesting that they are also compatible with alternative explanations.

【 授权许可】

CC BY