- The goal is to come up with an idea for an experiment based on
concepts and research from the course. Your research question should be
very focused.2. Describe what conditions you will have: the maximum is 3 conditions
for this assignment. Try to include a control condition, but if one is
not obvious just say so.3. Describe what you will measure and how. For example, don’t say “I
will measure children’s aggressive behavior;” instead be specific: I
will measure how many times the child hits the doll.4.Try to keep this to 200 words – I won’t be strict about this but don’t
submit 300 words. Include 4 references ; 2 of the references can be
from the list I provide. You can get away with just reading the
abstracts of the two other articles at this point.
An Experiment to Test Altruistic Helping in Human Infants
Helping is an interesting social and cognitive phenomenon. Human beings help others to achieve their goal (Warneken & Tomasello, 2006). Although the behavior develops early in life, it changes over toddlerhood (Svetlova, Nichols, & Brownell, 2010). The proposed experiment aims to test the sustainability of prosocial behavior, such a caring as children grow. Human children begin behaving prosocially very early in life, but the environment plays a role in sustaining the behavior (Svetlova, Nichols, & Brownell, 2010). For example, a toddler can comfort others in distress before they are two years. However, it is necessary to establish whether their environment affects their behavior as they grow up. The experiment will compare the behavior of children at two different age groups.
The proposed study will include three conditions. The conditions will involve children of different ages to assess the changes in childhood regarding altruistic helping behavior. The first condition will involve children before the age of two with an adult in distress. The second will involve children between three and four years expected to help an adult in distress. The control condition will be children expected to help an adult in distress with a prompt. The study will measure the child’s natural propensity to help without any prompt from an adult in distress. For example, the experiment could establish that younger children have a more natural tendency to help than older children. Older children might tend to help only with prompts from an adult in distress. The behavior will be measured by looking at how the child acts, in a caring manner such as holding to console, towards the adult in distress.
References
Hay DF, Cook KV. The transformation of prosocial behavior from infancy to childhood. In: Brownell CA, Kopp CB, editors. Socioemotional development in the toddler years: Transitions and transformations. New York, NY: Guilford Press; 2007. pp. 100–131.
Svetlova, M., Nichols, S. R., & Brownell, C. A. (2010). Toddlers’ prosocial behavior: From instrumental to empathic to altruistic helping. Child Development, 81(6), 1814-1827.
Svetlova, M., Nichols, S. R., & Brownell, C. A. (2010). Toddlers’ prosocial behavior: From instrumental to empathic to altruistic helping. Child Development, 81(6), 1814-1827.
Warneken, F., & Tomasello, M. (2006). Altruistic helping in human infants and young chimpanzees. Science, 311(5765), 1301-1303.
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