Thinking of me: Self-focus reduces sharing and helping in seven- to eight-year-olds

Sandra Weltzien; Lauren E. Marsh; Bruce Hood

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0189752

Thinking of me: Self-focus reduces sharing and helping in seven- to eight-year-olds

Sandra Weltzien^*, Lauren E. Marsh, Bruce Hood

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article (Academic Journal) › peer-review

13 Citations (Scopus)

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Abstract

By 7-to 8-years of age, most children readily adhere to prosocial norms aimed at benefiting others through giving up time and effort (helping) or resources (sharing). Two studies explored whether sharing and helping by 7-to 8-year olds (N = 180) could be influenced by priming children’s attention on themselves or their friends through a semi-structured interview. Results revealed that self-priming led to reductions in both sharing and helping compared to friendship-priming or a control condition. These findings are considered as indicative of the fragile state of prosocial behaviours at this age that can be easily shifted towards more selfish biases by simple priming.

Original language	English
Article number	e0189752
Journal	PLoS ONE
Volume	13
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0189752
Publication status	Published - 10 Jan 2018

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Developmental (Psychological Science)

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Thinking of me: Self-focus reduces sharing and helping in seven- to eight-year-olds

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The Endowment Effect & Self in Children.

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Thinking of me: Self-focus reduces sharing and helping in seven- to eight-year-olds

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