Links among neuroticism, inconsistent discipline, and empathy were assessed in a longitudinal study of adolescents. Mothers', but not fathers', inconsistent discipline predicted decreases in empathy 2 years later, but only for adolescents who were low in neuroticism. For those who were high, there was no effect of inconsistent discipline.…

Fifty-nine 6- to 9-year-old children evaluated three discipline strategies (reasoning, verbal power assertion, acknowledgment of feelings), and mothers were asked to predict their children's evaluations. Maternal knowledge scores were derived. Mothers were less accurate at predicting their children's perceptions of discipline when the misdeed in…

Children's sharing and helping behaviors were observed after they had seen an adult who modeled donation behavior and/or who preached either about the importance of sharing or about the importance of helping others. (Author/JMB)

Interviewed Australian and Canadian mothers about the assignment of either routine or specially requested household work to their 9- to 14-year-old sons and daughters. Found that routine work was positively correlated with older children's concern for family members. There was no correlation between household work and prosocial behavior toward…

Presents a study of the effects of modeling, direct instruction and suggested attributions on children's donating and sharing behavior. Seven- and ten-year-old children served as subjects. (BD)

Responses of day care and home care children to an adult dropping items, banging her knee, giving the children opportunity to leave the larger of two prizes for a peer, and asking for donation to sick children were compared. Prosocial reasoning in these 47- to 75-month-old children was assessed via their responses to stories in which help was…

Mothers recorded their children's prosocial behavior and failure to be prosocial, and their own responses to their children's behavior. Helping occurred more frequently than other prosocial behaviors. Children were equally likely to receive acknowledgement, approval, praise and no response for prosocial behavior. (BC)

Studies investigated effects of dispositional praise on internalized sharing and self-perception in children eight-nine years old. Dispositional praise had significant behavioral, cognitive, and affective consequences, but nondispositional praise did not. Perceived expectations may play an important role in determining behavioral consequences of…