Children's Reasoning About the Refusal to Help: The Role of Need, Costs, and Social Perspective Taking
Citations Over TimeTop 10% of 2013 papers
Abstract
Children (n = 133, aged 8–13) 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.
Related Papers
- → Age Changes in Prosocial Responding and Moral Reasoning in Adolescence and Early Adulthood(2005)481 cited
- → High cost helping scenario: The role of empathy, prosocial reasoning and moral disengagement on helping behavior(2012)206 cited
- → Bidirectional relations among empathy‐related traits, prosocial moral reasoning, and prosocial behaviors(2019)43 cited
- What Dimensions of Empathy Predict Prosocial Helping Behavior in Emerging Adulthood? The Relationships Between Volunteering to Help and Perspective-Taking Ability, Experience of Empathic Concern, and Self-Report Empathic Inclinations(2001)
- → Professional Moral Reasoning and (lack of) Empathy(2020)