Children's judgements of the obligation to help: The role of relationships. Issue 5 (2nd September 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Hachey, Emily; Conry-Murray, Clare
• Is Part Of: European journal of developmental psychology. Volume 17:Issue 5(2020)
• Page Start: 761
• Page End: 772
• Publication Date: 2020-09-02
• Subjects: Moral development -- gender -- prosocial Reasoning; Developmental psychology -- Periodicals; Developmental psychology -- Europe -- Periodicals; 155
• DOI: 10.1080/17405629.2020.1749046
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1740-5629

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Children at ages 7 (N = 24, M age = 6.96, SD age =.20), 9 (N = 29, M age = 8.76, SD age =.44), and 11 (N = 25, M age = 10.76, SD age =.66), and adults (N = 30) made judgements about the obligation to help when it conflicts with a personal desire. Across ages, the obligation to help was judged to be strongest when there were positive or neutral past interactions with the person in need of help, compared to mean past interactions. Expectation of a future friendship predicted the obligation to help, even after controlling for age and sex. However, we found no effect of children helping gender in-group members more. Evidence for altruism was not found: expected positive emotions did not predict the obligation to help. We conclude that an expectation of future relationship is the strongest predictor of helping obligation.