TY - JOUR
T1 - Infants’ prosocial behavior is governed by cost-benefit analyses
AU - Sommerville, Jessica A.
AU - Enright, Elizabeth A.
AU - Horton, Rachel O.
AU - Lucca, Kelsey
AU - Sitch, Miranda J.
AU - Kirchner-Adelhart, Susanne
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by a grant from the parents and infants that participated in this research. We are grateful to Sapna Cheryan, Kate McLaughlin and Felix Warneken for their comments on an earlier version of this manuscript. John Templeton Foundation , and through a grant from NICHD ( 1R01HD076949-01 ). The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the John Templeton Foundation or the NICHD. We are grateful to members of the Early Childhood Cognition lab for assistance with data collection and coding. We would like to thank the
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2018/8
Y1 - 2018/8
N2 - Cost-benefit analyses are central to mature decision-making and behavior across a range of contexts. Given debates regarding the nature of infants’ prosociality, we investigated whether 18-month-old infants’ (N = 160) prosocial behavior is impacted by anticipated costs and benefits. Infants participated in a helping task in which they could carry either a heavy or light block across a room to help an experimenter. Infants’ helping behavior was attenuated when the anticipated physical costs were high versus low (Experiment 1), and high-cost helping was enhanced under conditions of increased intrinsic motivational benefits (Experiments 2 and 3). High-cost helping was further predicted by infants’ months of walking experience, presumably because carrying a heavy block across a room is more effortful for less experienced walkers than for more experienced walkers demonstrating that infants subjectively calibrate costs. Thus, infants’ prosocial responding may be guided by a rational decision-making process that weighs and integrates costs and benefits.
AB - Cost-benefit analyses are central to mature decision-making and behavior across a range of contexts. Given debates regarding the nature of infants’ prosociality, we investigated whether 18-month-old infants’ (N = 160) prosocial behavior is impacted by anticipated costs and benefits. Infants participated in a helping task in which they could carry either a heavy or light block across a room to help an experimenter. Infants’ helping behavior was attenuated when the anticipated physical costs were high versus low (Experiment 1), and high-cost helping was enhanced under conditions of increased intrinsic motivational benefits (Experiments 2 and 3). High-cost helping was further predicted by infants’ months of walking experience, presumably because carrying a heavy block across a room is more effortful for less experienced walkers than for more experienced walkers demonstrating that infants subjectively calibrate costs. Thus, infants’ prosocial responding may be guided by a rational decision-making process that weighs and integrates costs and benefits.
KW - Cost-benefit analyses
KW - Infancy
KW - Prosocial behavior
KW - Shared preferences
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U2 - 10.1016/j.cognition.2018.03.021
DO - 10.1016/j.cognition.2018.03.021
M3 - Article
C2 - 29626793
AN - SCOPUS:85044975994
SN - 0010-0277
VL - 177
SP - 12
EP - 20
JO - Cognition
JF - Cognition
ER -