Contemporaneous and 1-year longitudinal prediction of children's prosocial behavior from sympathy and moral motivation.
The authors investigated the contemporaneous and longitudinal relations of children's (M age = 6.4 years) prosocial behavior to sympathy and moral motivation. Mothers and kindergarten teachers rated children's prosocial behavior. The authors measured sympathy via self- and adult reports. Moral motivation was assessed by children's attribution of emotions to hypothetical victimizers and self-as-victimizers and by moral reasoning after rule violations. Mother-rated prosocial behavior was contemporaneously and longitudinally related to sympathy. Moral motivation moderated the relation of sympathy to mother-rated prosocial behavior. Furthermore, boys' level of mother-rated prosocial behavior increased with level of moral motivation, whereas girls were high in mother-rated prosocial behavior, regardless of their level of moral motivation. Sympathy contemporaneously predicted kindergarten teacher-rated prosocial behavior.
Malti
Tina
T
Harvard University, USA. tmalti@mclean.harvard.edu
Gummerum
Michaela
M
Buchmann
Marlis
M
D002648:Child; D019548:Crime Victims; D004645:Empathy; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007389:Internal-External Control; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D035863:Moral Development; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D010552:Personality Assessment; D010865:Pilot Projects; D011340:Problem Solving; D012737:Sex Factors; D012919:Social Behavior; D013557:Switzerland