ERIC Number: EJ1468736
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2025-May
Pages: 7
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1363-755X
EISSN: EISSN-1467-7687
Available Date: 2025-04-10
How Prosocial Modeling Promotes Children's Sharing: A Goal Contagion Account
Developmental Science, v28 n3 e70020 2025
While a wealth of research evidence has highlighted the significant impact of prosocial modeling on shaping children's sharing behavior, the mechanism underlying this effect remains less understood. Here we consider the goal contagion account whereby children recognize the prosocial "goal" of others' actions and these goals are contagious, encouraging children to subsequently be more willing to engage in prosocial behaviors themselves. Accordingly, children's prosocial modeling may generalize across different types of prosocial behaviors that share the same prosocial goal. We tested this hypothesis by examining whether observing a group of peers engaging in one type of prosocial behavior (social mindfulness) promoted another type of prosocial behavior (sharing) among 4-year-old and 6-year-old Chinese children (N = 128). The results showed that children who observed peers making socially mindful choices shared significantly more than those who observed random or preference-based choices, with this effect being particularly pronounced in 6-year-olds. These findings demonstrate that children's learning of prosocial behavior is transferable, with goal contagion serving as a potential foundational mechanism, underscoring the flexible influence of prosocial modeling on children's emerging prosocial tendencies.
Descriptors: Prosocial Behavior, Modeling (Psychology), Sharing Behavior, Children, Child Behavior, Social Cognition, Goal Orientation, Foreign Countries
Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://www.wiley.com/en-us
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: China
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Data File: URL: https://osf.io/qw4hf/?view_only=35c9392c6805480f800faf471c914345
Author Affiliations: 1Department of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China; 2Department of Psychology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA; 3Center for Psychological Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China