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One of the most remarkable features of human societies is our ability to cooperate with each other. However, the benefits of cooperation are not extended to everyone. Indeed, another hallmark of human societies is a division between us and them. Favoritism toward members of our group can result in a loss of empathy and greater tolerance of harm toward those outside our group. The current study sought to investigate how in-group bias impacts the developmental emergence of concerns for fairness and care. We investigated the impact of in-group bias on decisions related to care and fairness in children (N = 95; ages 4–9). Participants made decisions about how to allocate resources between themselves and a peer who was either an in-group or out-group member. In decisions related to care, participants were given two trial types on which they could decide whether to give or throw away a positive or negative resource. In decisions related to fairness participants and peer partners each received one candy and participants decided whether to allocate or throw away an extra candy. If the extra candy was distributed it would place either the participant or their recipient at a relative advantage, whereas if the extra candy was thrown away the distribution would be equal. We found that on fairness trials children’s tendency to allocate resources was similar toward in-group and out-group recipients. Furthermore, children’s tendency to allocate resources changed with age such that younger participants were more likely to allocate extra candies to themselves, whereas older participants were more likely to allocate extra candies to their recipient. On trials related to care we did observe evidence of in-group bias. While distribution of positive resources was greater than negative resources for both in-group and out-group recipients, participants distributed negative resources to out-group recipients more often compared to in-group recipients, a tendency that was heightened for young boys. This pattern of results suggests that fairness and care develop along distinct pathways with independent motivational supports.

Prosocial behaviors begin to emerge at an early age (e.g., Damon, 1975; Rheingold et al., 1976; Eisenberg and Fabes, 1998; Thompson et al., 1997; Paulus, 2014). For example, helping behaviors are demonstrated by infants as young as 18 months of age (e.g., Warneken and Tomasello, 2006) and sharing behavior begins to emerge at around 2 years of age (e.g., Rheingold et al., 1976). Such prosociality is essential to social functioning in many respects. However, while prosocial behavior has long been of interest to developmental researchers, there remains much we do not know about the early development of prosocial behaviors. This research topic builds on a well-established area of research, and brings together the work of various researchers in the field of prosocial development who have contributed unique theoretical perspectives, insightful reviews, and novel empirical work. The goal of this research topic is to examine broadly how, why, and when a spectrum of behaviors emerge, and enhance our understanding of the beginnings of human prosociality. Here, the existing literature is reviewed, and new insights into the development of prosocial behaviors are offered. A broad range of topics such as helping, cooperation, sharing, inequality aversion, and moral reasoning are covered, and various factors influencing prosociality explored. As discussed in a theoretical contribution by Keith Jensen, Amrisha Vaish, and Marco Schmidt, prosociality is unique to humans and its development is influenced by a variety of mechanisms such as empathy, other-regarding concerns, and normativity. Importantly, the term prosocial behavior encompasses a multitude of behaviors, however, in her review article, Kristen Dunfield proposes that other-oriented, prosocial actions can be categorized into three specific subtypes; sharing, helping, and comforting, drawing on existing literature to support her proposal. These subtypes of prosocial behaviors are further explored in this research topic using a variety of approaches. For instance, helping in early childhood is explored in a theoretical contribution by Stuart Hammond. While Hammond discusses the development of early helping behavior using a Piagetian framework, helping is also explored empirically by Sunae Kim, Beate Sodian, and Markus Paulus, who investigate differences in children's expectations regarding instrumental helping and self-helping at different points in development. Other empirical contributions include work by Martina Vogelsang, Keith Jensen, Sebastian Kirschner, Claudio Tennie, and Michael Tomasello exploring cooperation in 5-year-olds using a public goods game, and a study by Sophia Ongley, Marta Nola, and Tina Malti demonstrating that moral reasoning is a strong predictor of the generosity of children's donations. Ongley and colleagues also explore how moral emotions such as sympathy and guilt relate to children's donating behavior, while several other experiments included in this research topic also explore various aspects of empathy and sympathy in early childhood. For instance, in a longitudinal study exploring the stability of sympathy over time, Jutta Kienbaum demonstrates that sympathy shows strong stability, and increases between the last year of preschool and the first year of school. Meanwhile, Jesse Drummond, Elena Paul, Whitney Waugh, Stuart Hammond and Celia Brownell show that empathic helping in toddlers is predicted by emotion and mental state talk, and Amanda Williams, Kelly O'Driscoll and Chris Moore demonstrate that experiencing empathic concern for another individual affects subsequent prosocial behavior; both decreasing envy, and increasing sharing. Other factors influencing prosociality and social interactions are also investigated. In a study exploring the motivations underlying preferences for equality in situations of disadvantageous inequality, Amanda Williams and Chris Moore offer evidence that in some situations social comparison concerns—as opposed to fairness norms, influence decision-making. Markus Paulus demonstrates that the wealth of one's sharing partner also influences 5-year-olds sharing behavior with that individual, while Monica Burns and Jessica Sommerville demonstrate that both fairness and race influence 15-month-old infants' selection of social partners. In a study looking at social preferences in an even younger sample, Kiley Hamlin demonstrates that even infants as young as 4.5 months display context-dependent social preferences, and selectivity in prosocial behavior is further discussed in a review paper by Valerie Kuhlmeier, Kristen Dunfield, and Amy O'Neill. Together this body of research demonstrates and discusses the complexities of a wide range of prosocial behaviors. It makes a significant contribution to the extant literature across a range of age groups, and a wide breadth of topics. It is our hope that the novel ideas, methodologies, and findings presented here help us better understand the development of early prosocial behavior as a whole, and stimulate and inspire future research.

This research examined disadvantageous inequality aversion in 4- and 6-year-old children. Using the resource allocation paradigm, we explored how inequality aversion was influenced by whether a cost was associated with the equitable choice. We also investigated whether preferences for equality differed depending on whether the inequitable choice presented a small or large discrepancy between the payoff of the participant and their partner. The results demonstrated that cost plays a large role in decision-making, as children preferred equality more when there was no cost associated with it compared to when there was a cost. Interestingly, the effect of cost also affected discrepancy, with children more likely to choose equality when the discrepancy was large as opposed to small, in cost trials but not in no cost trials. Finally, the effect of discrepancy also interacted with age, with older children being more sensitive to the discrepancy between themselves and their partner. Together, these results suggest that children’s behavior is not indiscriminately guided by a generalized aversion to inequality or established fairness norms. Alternate motives for inequality aversion are discussed.

This research explored the influence of empathic distress on prosocial behaviour in a resource allocation task with children. Children were randomly assigned to one of two conditions before engaging in a sticker sharing task; watching either a video of a girl upset that her dog had gone missing (emotion induction condition), or a video of the same girl preparing for a yard sale (control condition). In study one, 5-6 year old children in the emotion induction condition rated the emotional state of both the protagonist and the self more negatively, and also exhibited more prosocial behaviour; sharing more in advantageous inequity trials, and less often withholding a benefit in disadvantageous inequity trials, than the control group. Prosocial behaviour was significantly correlated with ratings of the emotional state of the protagonist but not with own emotional state, suggesting that empathic concern rather than personal distress was the primary influence on prosocial behaviour. In study two, 3-year-olds were tested on advantageous inequity trials alone, and like the 5 and 6-year-olds, showed more prosocial behaviour in the emotion induction condition than the control.