Children perpetuate competence-based inequality when they help peers.

Exchanges of help between children are common and often have positive consequences. But not all help is equally beneficial, for example because some help does not provide an opportunity to practice and develop skills. Here I examine whether young children might perpetuate competence-based inequality by providing incompetent peers with less opportunity to practice and improve their skills compared to competent peers. Study 1 (N = 253, 6-9 years) shows that young children understand not all help is equally beneficial: Children think that peers who receive empowerment (hints) vs. non-empowerment (correct answers) help can learn more. Study 2 (N = 80) and 3 (N = 41) then assessed children's (7-9 years) actual helping behavior in a lab-based experiment. Through a cover story, participants were introduced to two unknown, same-age children whom they later overheard were either good or not good at solving puzzles (Study 2) or math (Study 3). Subsequently, participants got to help both of them with a puzzle-quiz (Study 2) or a math-quiz (Study 3) by providing either empowerment or non-empowerment when they asked for help. Across both studies, children were more likely to provide empowerment help to competent peers, and non-empowerment help to incompetent peers. This work suggests that when young children perceive differences in competence (e.g., based on stereotypes), they contribute to maintaining the status quo by providing the most vulnerable students, that would profit the most from improving their skills, less opportunity to do so.

Racial Stereotype Application in 4-to-8-Year-Old White American Children: Emergence and Specificity.

Young children's racial stereotyping is poorly understood even though stereotyping can influence individuals' attitudes and behavior toward others. Here we present two preregistered studies (Total N = 257) examining White American children's (4-8 years) application of six stereotypes (about being American, smart, wealthy, sporty, honest, and nice) when considering Asian, Black, and White children. We observed clear and consistent evidence for one cultural stereotype across the two studies: participants indicated that Asian and Black children were less American than White children. In a measure of racial attitudes, participants also preferred White children over Black and Asian children. Taken together, this research suggests that, in contrast to findings from previous work, White American children only consistently applied stereotypes about being American. Moreover, this research suggests that children's cultural stereotypes might diverge from children's attitudes early in development. These studies raise new questions about the emergence of racial stereotype application early in childhood - including how best to study it.

Prosocial choices: How do young children evaluate considerate and inconsiderate behavior?

Adults often act considerately toward others, for example, by leaving the last cookie on a plate or stepping aside on a busy sidewalk. What do young children infer from observing considerate behavior? In three preregistered studies, we assess how young children evaluate considerate and inconsiderate behavior by showing them animated videos in which targets make decisions that either leave or limit choice options for others. Study 1 (N = 372 6- to 12-year-old children, 170 girls, 187 boys [15 not reported], 84.4% native Dutch) showed that older children, but not younger children (i.e., 6 years), evaluated considerate others (i.e., who leave a choice for others) as nicer than inconsiderate others, and they were also more willing to lend their toys to them. Moreover, children's evaluations were specific to the social domain, as children of all ages evaluated both targets as equally smart. Focusing on younger children (5-7 years), study 2 (N = 99; 57 boys, 42 girls, 78.8% native Dutch) showed that when the consequences of considerate or inconsiderate behavior were made explicit and videos showed one target at a time, children as young as 5 years old evaluated considerate targets as nicer. Study 3 (N = 43; 20 boys, 23 girls, 92.5% native Dutch) showed that young children also evaluated considerate behavior as nicer when the consequences of considerate behavior were not made explicit. These studies extend developmental research on prosocial behavior and suggest that considerate behavior conveys a clear social signal early in life. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Competence-based helping: Children's consideration of need when providing others with help.

When and how other people's needs influence children's helping is poorly understood. Here we focused on whether children use information about other people's competence in their helping. In Study 1 (N = 128 4- to 8-year-old children), children could provide help to both an incompetent target and a competent target by pushing levers. Whereas older children helped incompetent targets more than competent targets, younger children (<5 years) helped both targets equally. Two further experiments (N = 20 and N = 28) revealed that 4-year-olds understood that the incompetent person needed more help and also understood how they could help. Thus, young children do not, like older children, give more help to those who need it the most. We discuss potential developmental changes toward competence-based helping.

When Helping Hurts: Children Think Groups That Receive Help Are Less Smart.

Helping has many positive consequences for both helpers and recipients. However, in the present research, we considered a possible downside to receiving help: that it signals a deficiency. We investigated whether young children make inferences about intelligence from observing some groups of people receive help and other groups not. In a novel group paradigm, we show that children (4-6 years) think groups that receive help are less smart (n = 44) but not less nice (n = 45). Children also generalized their inferences about relative intelligence to new group members (n = 55; forced-choice-method). These results have implications for understanding how children develop stereotypes about intelligence as well as for educational practices that group children according to their ability.

Children tell more prosocial lies in favor of in-group than out-group peers.

Children tell prosocial lies from the age of three years onward, but little is known about for whom they are inclined to lie. This preregistered study examined children's (N = 138, 9-12 years) prosocial lying behavior toward minimal in-group and out-group peers. Additionally, children evaluated vignettes in which an in-group peer told a prosocial lie to an in-group or out-group peer. Results show that only older children told more prosocial lies for the benefit of in-group compared with out-group peers. Further, in the vignettes children of all ages were more accepting of prosocial lying in favor of in-group members compared with out-group members. These findings underscore the importance of considering intergroup relations in children's prosocial lying behavior and advocate for broadening the scope of research on children's intergroup prosociality. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Majority group children expect that ethnic out-group peers feel fewer positive but more negative emotions than in-group peers.

Across two studies majority group children's (8-13 years) perception of positive and negative emotions in ethnic in-group and disadvantaged ethnic out-group peers was examined. Study 1 (N = 302) showed that children expected in-group peers to feel better in a positive situation compared to out-group peers. Whereas, in a negative situation, children expected in-group peers to feel less bad compared to out-group peers, particularly when they evaluated the in-group as very positive. Study 2 (N = 201) replicates these findings across multiple positive and negative situations, and additionally shows that in very negative situations children expect in-group and out-group peers to feel equally bad. These results suggest that children's perception of emotions in others is influenced by ethnic group membership.

Costs of helping only influence children's intention to help ethnic out-group peers.

Studies show that children are often inclined to help less when the costs of helping increase. However, these studies do not take into account who children are helping. Yet, developmental intergroup research has shown that the intergroup context influences children's reasoning about helping behavior. Two experimental vignette studies are presented that examined the influence of the costs of helping on children's (8-13 years) intention to help in an ethnic intergroup context. Study 1 (N = 320) showed that the costs of helping reduce children's willingness to help ethnic out-group peers but do not influence children's intention to help ethnic in-group peers. Study 2 (N = 166) replicated the results of Study 1 for a different ethnic out-group context. Moreover, children's reduced willingness to help ethnic out-group peers when costs increase was not contingent on their ethnic in-group or out-group evaluation or their age. Taken together, this research shows, for the first time, that the costs of helping reduce children's willingness to help ethnic out-group peers but not ethnic in-group peers.

Children's helping behavior in an ethnic intergroup context: Evidence for outgroup helping.

Two studies examined when and why children (10-13 years) help ethnic in-group and out-group peers. In Study 1 (n = 163) children could help an out-group or in-group peer with a word-guessing game by entering codes into a computer. While children evaluated the out-group more negatively than the in-group, they helped out-group peers more than in-group peers. Study 2 (n = 117) conceptually replicated the findings of Study 1. Additionally the results suggest that when children endorsed the stereotype that the out-group is "less smart," this increased their intention to help out-group peers and it decreased their intention to enter codes for in-group peers. The results suggest that the specific content of a negative stereotype can guide helping responses toward out-group and in-group members. (PsycINFO Database Record

In-group bias in children's intention to help can be overpowered by inducing empathy.

An experimental vignette study was conducted among children (8-13 years) to examine whether inducing empathic understanding is an effective intervention to overpower peer group boundaries in children's helping. Children were induced or not induced to empathize with the recipient of help, who was or was not part of their (imagined) group of friends. Results showed that children intended to help in-group peers more compared to outgroup peers when empathic understanding was not induced. However, when empathy was induced, they intended to help friends and non-friends equally. Inducing empathic understanding was effective independent of the recipient's level of need, and children's advanced social perspective-taking ability. Encouraging children to imagine how a recipient of help feels might thus be a useful strategy to prevent peer group-based biases in children's helping behaviour.

Children's intergroup helping: the role of empathy and peer group norms.

Two studies examined children's (8- to 13-year-olds) intergroup helping intentions. In Study 1, 856 children indicated their intention to help national in-group or out-group peers in a high need situation and in either a public or private context. Results showed that children's empathic tendencies predicted their intention to help and that the context as well as recipients' group membership had no effects. In Study 2, 388 children indicated their intention to help in-group and out-group peers in either a low need or high need situation. Results of Study 1 were replicated. In addition, in the low need situation and when helping was public, children intended to help out-group peers more than in-group peers, particularly when they perceived an accepting descriptive classroom norm about the out-group. When the need was relatively high, empathy appeared to outweigh children's group norm considerations. In all analyses, no age differences were found.

Children's reasoning about the refusal to help: the role of need, costs, and social perspective taking.

Children (n = 133, aged 8­13) were interviewed about helping situations that systematically varied in recipient's need for help and the costs for the helper. In situations where helping a peer involved low costs, children perceived a moral obligation to help that was independent of peer norms, parental authority, and reciprocity considerations. When helping a peer involved high costs this over powered the perceived obligation to help, but only in situations involving low need and when in line with reciprocity. When both need and costs were high, younger children expressed stronger moral indignation while older children were less negative and reasoned in terms of other solutions. Furthermore, stronger moral indignation was related to more advanced social perspective taking skills when need and costs were high.

With a little help from my friends: bystander context and children's attitude toward peer helping.

This experimental vignette study examined children's perceptions and evaluations of helping a peer, in the context of friendships and in the presence of by-standing peers. A total of 1246 children (8 to 12 years) reported their attitude toward helping when either friends of the helper, friends of the recipient of help, or no bystanders were present. In agreement with the competitive altruism model, children most strongly endorsed helping when friends of the helper were present compared to the other two situations. This indicates that children take reputation concerns into account when evaluating helping situations. However, in contrast to lower prosocial children, the evaluations of higher prosocial children were not influenced by the presence of by-standing peers. These children seemed to base their evaluation on increasing the recipient's welfare and less on reputation concerns of the helper.

Majority children's evaluation of acculturation preferences of immigrant and emigrant peers.

Using an experimental design, native majority group children (8-13 years, N = 842) evaluated acculturation strategies (assimilation, integration, and separation) adopted by immigrant and emigrant peers. There were medium to large effects of the perceived acculturation strategies on children's peer evaluations. Overall, assimilation was valued most, followed by integration and separation. These effects were in part mediated by perceived national belonging. In addition, the effects were stronger for lower status compared to higher status immigrant groups, and for children with higher compared to lower national identification. For emigrants, separation was valued most, followed by integration and assimilation. This indicates that the intergroup processes rather than migration per se are important for children's acculturation perceptions and evaluations.