London, Sep 3 (Inditop.com) Most of us are willing to help a needy neighbour, even at a cost to ourselves. Why do we do it? Because of our social environments when we were children, a new study has found.
If mere social hints can boost children’s helpfulness in the lab, just imagine what a few small changes in kids’ social environments might do to promote selflessness in the real world.
In a new study, Harriet Over and Malinda Carpenter of Germany’s Max Planck Institute found that priming kids for affiliation (readying infants with subtle hints to social relationship), increases their tendency to be helpful.
Researchers showed a large group of 18-month-olds photos of household objects, for example a teapot or a shoe.
For each of these background images, some of the infants saw two small wooden dolls, facing and almost touching each other. Others saw the dolls facing away from one another, while others saw just one doll and still others saw some wooden blocks.
The idea was that the two dolls who were obviously engaged with each other – and only those dolls – would spark thoughts of group identity and belonging, and that those unconscious feelings of affiliation would increase helpful behaviour in the children.
To test this, after infants saw the images, one of the researchers “accidentally” dropped a bundle of small sticks. Then she waited, and took note of which infants spontaneously reached out to help.
If the infants didn’t help immediately on their own, the researcher dropped some hints about the sticks and needing help, said a Max Planck release.
The children who had been primed for affiliation and group belonging were three times as likely as any of the other infants to spontaneously offer help.
Infants who saw two dolls standing close to each other but were disengaged were about as helpful as those who saw just the lone doll – or the wooden blocks.
These findings were published in Psychological Science.
