This study investigates the relationship between cooperation and empathy in young children proposed by Levine and Hoffman (1975). The study replicates the Levine and Hoffman study with the following modifications: (1) the naturalistic observation includes both males and females; (2) the sampling of cooperation is based upon the presence or absence…

Research literature supports the contention that teachers should be involved in program design, implementation, and evaluation of inservice education programs. This study was an attempt to gain information concerning the self-perceived inservice needs of teachers in an urban setting. Six areas of need were identified: (1) developing pupil…

Institutional responses to vandalism and anonymous damage seldom deal with the apparent lack of respect for people and property and the failure to accept responsibility for one's environment which are at the root of the problem. The Point Ownership Program/Earn Your Environment (POP/EYE) effort at the State University of New York at Delhi attempts…

Research in the development of prosocial behavior in children is better done by naturalistic than by experimental methods. The choice of what problems to address in social science research depends upon value commitments. The ultimate criterion for evaluating research in the behavioral sciences must be social relevance and utility. The dominant…

It was hypothesized that both parental affection and the emphasizing of the feelings, thoughts, and intentions of others in discipline techniques are related to young children's cooperativeness. The cooperative behavior of 31 children was measured by both naturalistic observation and behavior ratings. Parents were interviewed and responded to five…

This study examined the relationship of dependency, empathy, and altruism. It was hypothesized that: (1) dependency would be related in a curvilinear manner to empathy, with children who are moderate in dependency scoring highest in empathy; (2) dependency would be positively related to visible altruism when such prosocial behavior results in…

This report describes research designed to examine questions about the amounts and kinds of positive examples appearing in children's television programming, the influence they have on children's prosocial behavior, and the circumstances that optimize attention to and comprehension of such content. A methodology for analyzing positive social…

This paper discusses the wide appeal, and the effect on the viewing audience, of traditional television soap operas. It reports on a comparison of role interactions, topics discussed by the characters, and types of topics and problems presented on the television program "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman" with those presented on two traditional…

This study investigated the influence of structured children's television programming on prosocial behavior. Subjects were 53 children ages 4-6, from two day care centers. Nine videotapes were produced (three for each of three experimental conditions) differing in their presentation of socially-valued behavior, socially-devalued behavior,…

This research review concerns the definition of social values, assessing the development of social values with matrix games and decomposed games, the perception of social values and rules of fairness, and the problem of distinguishing the strategic and goal aspects of social values. (SJL)

Deals with a field experiment conducted to explore the relationship between two determinants of helpfulness and predecisional communication behavior and discusses findings in terms of Schwartz's model of normative behavior. (MH)

Inadequacies of previous theoretical formulations of the concept of empathy are discussed. A comprehensive theory of empathy which considers the role of various cognitive, affective and social factors is postulated. (BD)

Investigated the relationship between children's temperaments, in interaction with situational factors, and their helping behavior. Twenty-four preschool children were presented with four opportunities for helping a female adult. Mothers rated children's helpfulness at home. Multiple measures of sociablity were gathered from mothers and preschool…

Female subjects high in private self-consciousness provided more assistance to a person in need than did subjects low on this attribute. "High-private" subjects were less helpful if they were also high in public self-consciousness. Self-reported altruism, reliably predicted the helping behavior of subjects high as opposed to low in…

This study investigated whether learning with a computer in small group settings would produce higher levels of achievement, attitudes, and prosocial orientation than learning in individualized settings. Participants were 115 junior high school students. Results and their implications are discussed. (Author/MT)