儿童助人行为的观察研究

Helping Behavior among Preschool Children: An Observational Study Author(s): Daniel Bar-Tal, Alona Raviv and Marta Goldberg Source: Child Development, Vol. 53, No. 2 (Apr., 1982), pp. 396-402 Published by: Wiley on behalf of the Society for Research in Child Development Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1128982 . Accessed: 24/06/2013 21:15 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. . Wiley and Society for Research in Child Development are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Child Development. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 222.66.117.76 on Mon, 24 Jun 2013 21:15:42 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Helping Behavior among Preschool Children: An Observational Study Daniel Bar-Tal, Alona Raviv, and Marta Goldberg Tel-Aviv University BAR-TAL, DANIEL; RAVIV, ALONA; and GOLDBERG, MARTA. Helping Behavior among Preschool Children: An Observational Study. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1982, 53, 396-402. The present study describes helping behavior of preschool children. 156 children between the ages of 18 and 76 months were observed 3 times for 10 min each, during their free play activity. The observers coded each helping act (whether it was performed in play or in reality) and noted its form (sharing, giving, aiding, and comforting), circumstances (self-initiation, compliance, and imitation), and condition (no promise of a reward, promise of social reward, promise of tangible reward and threat). The children were divided into 5 age groups. The results showed that, in general, helping behavior did not increase with age. But, with age, children performed fewer helping acts in imaginative play situations and more real helping acts. Also, with age, children performed more real comforting acts and fewer real giving acts. With regard to the other categories, no age differences were found. Research about children's helping behav- ior has been increasing in the last decade (see Bar-Tal 1976; Mussen & Eisenberg-Berg 1977; Staub 1979; Bar-Tal, Note 1). However, with few exceptions (e.g., Eisenberg-Berg & Hand 1979; Yarrow & Waxier 1976), most of the studies were experiments performed in the lab- oratories (see Bar-Tal, Note 1, for review). The present study investigates children's helping be- havior in nursery schools and kindergartens, using the observation method. It compares the forms, circumstances, and conditions of helping acts among preschool children of various ages. This direction of research is important in view of the emerging evidence indicating that although children can perform helping acts from early childhood, the qualitative nature of helping behavior may change with age (see reviews in Bar-Tal & Raviv, in press; Eisen- berg-Berg, in press; Bar-Tal, Note 2). That is, helping behavior might be performed as a result of various motives which reflect the qual- ity of the act: for example, children might per- form helping acts because they were asked to do so by teachers or peers, because of imita- tion, or because of self-initiation. They may per- form it also in return for a promised tangible or social reward, or without any of such promised rewards. In this vein, behavioral studies by Bar-Tal, Raviv, and Leiser (1980) and Raviv, Bar-Tal, and Lewis-Levin (1980) showed that the mo- tives for helping behavior develop with age. These studies investigated children between the ages of 5 and 14 and found that the older the children, the more of them initiate helping acts without being promised a reward and, con- versely, the younger the children, the more of them help as a result of compliance with a request or the promise of an external reward. Bar-Tal and his colleagues (Bar-Tal & Raviv, in press; Bar-Tal, Sharabany, & Raviv, in press; Bar-Tal, Note 2) explained all these results by suggesting that helping behavior development is contingent upon the level of cognitive, social perspective, moral, and motivational develop- ment. That is, the higher the level of cognitive, social perspective, moral, and motivational de- velopment, the more children help and the higher the quantity and quality of that help. Within the domains of cognitive, social perspec- tive, moral, and motivational development, children acquire skills-such as ability to pre- dict the outcome of one's own acts, ability to empathize, ability to reason according to high- level morality-which are necessary for high- quality helping behavior. Empirical evidence, though not consistent, indicates that (a) the extent and quantity of helping behavior in- creases with age (e.g., Elliott & Vasta 1970; Emler & Rushton 1974); (b) the extent of helping behavior is correlated positively to the cognitive development, as assessed by the abil- Requests for reprints should be sent to Daniel Bar-Tal, School of Education, Tel-Aviv Uni- versity, Tel-Aviv, Israel. [Child Development, 1982, 53, 396-402. @ 1982 by the Society for Research in Child Development, Inc. All rights reserved. 0009-3920/82/5302-0022$01.001 This content downloaded from 222.66.117.76 on Mon, 24 Jun 2013 21:15:42 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Bar-Tal, Raviv, and Goldberg 397 ity to perform conservation task (e.g., Larsen & Kellog 1974); (c) the quantity of helping behavior is positively related to empathetic abil- ity (e.g., Buckley, Siegel, & Ness 1979; Ian- notti 1978); and (d) the quantity of helping behavior is positively related to moral judg- ment (e.g., Dreman 1976; Emler & Rushton 1974). The present study extends the investiga- tion of children's helping behavior to early childhood (specifically children of nursery school and kindergarten age) by observing the circumstances (how it was initiated) and the conditions (whether any reinforcements were involved), which determine the quality of their helping behavior. The present study also investigates various forms of helping behavior as exhibited by chil- dren. This investigation is based on a concep- tion which views helping behavior as only one category of prosocial behavior.' Helping Be- havior has been defined as an act which bene- fits others, and no prior promise of a tangible reward has been given in return (Bar-Tal, Note 2). Acts done in return for a promised tangible reward are considered exchange acts. Helping behavior would thus include the following forms of acts: (a) sharing--donating part of the object or objects in the individual's posses- sion to another person; (b) giving--donating the whole of the object(s) in the individual's possession to another person without leaving any for oneself; (c) aiding-the alleviation of another's nonemotional needs through verbal or motor behavior; and (d) comforting-the alle- viation of emotional needs of another, verbally or physically. The latter two forms are based on distinctions made by Yarrow and Waxler (1976) and Eisenberg-Berg and Hand (1979). These four forms of helping behavior differ with regard to the competence of skills re- quired. Finally, the present study differentiates be- tween helping acts performed within a play framework and real helping acts. Children may perform imaginative and/or symbolic helping acts within the framework of dramatic play. Such acts are carried out as a part of the role- playing context where they respond to the imagined needs of another-for example, a child playing "father" helps the "mother" to carry a doll. In contrast, real helping acts are performed in response to the real needs of an- other. Between the ages of 2 and 7 a substan- tial part of the child's play is devoted to imag- inative play. However, this type of play tends to decrease, since parents and teachers tend in general to discourage fantasy games (Singer 1973). On the basis of the previously suggested theoretical considerations and reviewed empir- ical evidence, the following hypotheses were formulated: (a) The older the children, the more helping acts they would perform; (b) the older the children, the more real helping acts they would perform; (c) the older the children, the more self-initiated helping acts they would perform; and (d) the older the children, the more they would perform benefiting acts with- out being promised a reward. With regard to forms of helping acts, no specific hypotheses were formulated. Method Subjects The subjects were 156 children (76 boys and 80 girls) who attended eight nursery schools and kindergartens in two middle-class to upper-middle-class Tel Aviv suburbs. The age range was 18.3-76.4 months with a mean of 40.8 months. Each class was homogeneously grouped by age and consisted of 20-35 children and two adult teachers. Fifteen to 25 children were randomly selected from each class for the observations. For the purpose of the analyses, the children were divided into five age groups: (a) 30 months and below, 25 children (13 boys and 12 girls); (b) 31-42 months, 32 children (19 boys and 13 girls); (c) 43-54 months, 43 children (14 boys and 29 girls); (d) 55-66 months, 32 children (15 boys and 17 girls); and (e) 67 months and above, 24 children (15 boys and 9 girls). Settings The first three age groups were selected from five nursery school classes and the two last age groups were selected from three kin- dergarten classes. Nursery schools are attended by children aged 2-4 years and kindergartens are attended by 4-6-year-olds. The observed nursery schools and kindergartens operate 5 hours a day (8:00-13:00), in similar settings and in a very similar manner. Both have sim- ilar periods of collective, organized activities and free play period. The teachers do not in- 1 Prosocial behavior has been defined as acts which benefit another person. Prosocial be- havior encompasses such behaviors as helping, cooperation, or exchange (Bar-Tal, Note 2). This content downloaded from 222.66.117.76 on Mon, 24 Jun 2013 21:15:42 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 398 Child Development terfere with the children's free play activities which can take place indoors and outdoors. Procedure Each child was observed by two observers for 10 min during the kindergarten's free play activity, on three separate occasions and in a predetermined order. The free play activities in the eight classes were similar. The children were free to move outdoors and indoors and to choose any activity or game they wanted. The teachers minimized their interference during the free play activities, and no intervention dif- ferences among the classes were detected. The observations were made as discreetly and un- obtrusively as possible, with little disturbance to the child's activity. Each observer carried a clipboard with data sheets to code the observa- tions. As soon as the observers completed their 10-min observation of one child, they immedi- ately went on to the next child on their list. During the 10-min observation, the observers were instructed to record the frequencies of social contacts the child made. If it involved a helping act, its nature was also recorded in accordance with the predetermined categories. Measures The behavior of each child was coded in accordance with the following categories: 1. Social contact was defined as whenever a child was in company or approached another person or persons or was approached to play, to talk, to listen, etc. (not mere accidental pas- sive standing beside another child or adult). The observers used an event criterion and re- corded whether the contact was made with a teacher or a peer. Among different types of social contacts, the observers were instructed to note helping acts. 2. A helping act was defined as whenever a child performed an act which benefited an- other person, even when a reward was prom- ised in advance.2 The observers coded whether the helping act was performed in the frame- work of a play or a real situation. (The play activities were initiated by the children with- out teacher interference.) Finally, the observers characterized the helping act in accordance with its form, cir- cumstances, and reinforcement conditions. Four forms of helping behavior were coded: sharing, giving, aiding, and comforting. Three different circumstances surrounding the helping act were coded: self-initiation (whenever the child spon- taneously initiated the helping act); compliance with request (performance of a helping act as a consequence of a request from another person); and imitation (performance of a help- ing act as a consequence of seeing the same act performed by another person). Four rein- forcement conditions of the helping act were coded: no reward (whenever no external re- ward was promised in return for the helping act); social reward (whenever social nontangi- ble reward was verbally promised by anybody in return for the helping act); tangible reward (whenever a tangible reward was verbally promised in return for the helping act); and threat (whenever a threat was made if he or she would not perform the helping act). Two observers practiced coding together before the actual data collection began, until a criterion of 85%-90% agreement for each cat- egory was obtained. The final average inter- observer agreement for all categories was 94%, with a range of 86%--100% for the various help- ing categories. Agreement on coding occurred when both observers categorized the social con- tact act identically. Agreement was figured by the number of agreements divided by the num- ber of disagreements plus the number of agree- ments. It was ascertained during the data col- lection period. Methods of Analysis Because the collected measures of the de- pendent variables were of a different range of values and type of distribution, they were an- alyzed in three different ways: (a) The data regarding social contacts were not normally dis- tributed but seemed to approximate Poisson distribution in accordance with the nature of data which are number of events (social con- tacts) in a fixed time interval. Therefore, the data were transformed by a square root, for the stabilization of the variance (Snedecor & Cochran 1967), and then analyzed by analyses of variance between age groups. (b) Those categories of helping acts in which there was some variation between subjects and the range of values was large enough (the values were at least between zero and four helping acts) were analyzed as proportions of total helping acts. The analyses were done by a weighted regression of logit transformation, on children's age, without any groupings. The logit trans- formation of a proportion p of helping events 2 This category was used in the present study in order to include also exchange acts which benefit another person. Inclusion of this category enabled to investigate the conditions of ini- tiating benefiting acts. This content downloaded from 222.66.117.76 on Mon, 24 Jun 2013 21:15:42 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Bar-Tal, Raviv, and Goldberg 399 out of a total number n of helping acts is de- fined by log (p/ (1-p). The appropriate weight for the regression is w = np (l-p) (Bishop, Fienberg, & Holland 1975). This transforma- tion was chosen to improve the linearity of the data. (c) The rest of the helping act categories, which had almost no variation among the sub- jects, were analyzed by a X2 test in two-way frequency table (i.e., helped vs. did not help). Results No sex difference was detected in any of the statistical analyses. Therefore, the data of both sexes were combined. Social Contact Comparisons among the five age groups of the total number of social contacts and the number of social contacts with a teacher and with a peer, in the three observation periods, were made by means of an analysis of variance. The mean numbers of social contacts and stan- dard deviations for the five age groups are pre- sented in table 1. While the total number of social contacts and a number of social contacts with a peer were not found different among the age groups, the analysis of variance for a num- ber of social contacts with a teacher yielded a significant effect, F(4,155) = 12.72, p < .001. This result indicates that children in the young- est age group had ore social contacts with a teacher than any other age group. No differ- ences were found between the other age groups. The multiple comparisons were done with a Scheffe test. Helping Acts The proportion of helping acts to social contacts was found to be unrelated to age, as analyzed by a weighted regression of logit transformation. But the proportion of real help- ing acts to total helping acts was found to in- crease significantly with age, as determined by a weighted regression analysis, F(1,104)= 11.02, p < .01. Description of helping acts is presented in table 2. TABLE 1 MEAN NUMBER OF SOCIAL CONTACTS AND STANDARD DEVIATIONS BY AGE AGE Under 30 31-42 43-54 55-66 67 Months Months Months Months Months and Above TYPE OF SOCIAL CONTACT (N = 25) (N = 32) (N = 43) (N = 32) (N = 24) Social contact with teacher ..... 3.28 .97 1.46 .97 .58 (1.72) (1.40) (1.53) (1.33) (.77) Social contact with child....... 5.72 7.56 7.84 6.87 6.75 (3.14) (2.96) (2.64) (2.21) (1.92) Total social contact.......... 9.00 8.53 9.30 7.84 7.33 (4.02) (3.34) (3.60) (3.19) (1.94) NOTE.-The numbers in parentheses indicate standard deviations. TABLE 2 DESCRIPTION OF HELPING BEHAVIOR Under 30 31-42 43-54 55-66 67 Months Variables Months Months Months Months and Above Percentage of helping acts from total social contacts ............................ 20.27% 17.03% 9.53% 14.74% 18.75% Mean helping acts: M..................................... 1.92 1.56 .91 1.16 1.37 (N = 25) (N = 32) (N = 43) (N = 32) (N = 24) SD .................................. 1.44 1.36 1.26 1.01 1.17 Percentage of real helping acts from total helping acts......................... 66.67% 70.00% 92.31% 94.59% 96.97% Mean helping acts in a play: M.................................... .64 .47 .07 .07 .04 (N = 25) (N = 32) (N = 43) (N = 32) (N = 24) SD................................... .81 .86 .36 .33 .28 This content downloaded from 222.66.117.76 on Mon, 24 Jun 2013 21:15:42 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 400 Child Development Table 2 shows that helping acts consti- tuted between 9.53% and 20.27% of the total social contacts and the highest percentage was obtained by the youngest group. The percent- age of real helping acts out of the total helping acts increases in the first two age groups to the point that real helping acts constitute more than 90% of all helping acts. Real Helping Acts With regard to a comparison by age of the forms of real helping acts, only aiding was an- alyzed with a weighted regression analysis. Sharing, giving, and comforting were each an- alyzed with the X2 test (number of children who performed the act in comparison to the number of children who did not perform the act in each age group). The analyses yielded significant results only for giving and comfort- ing. The former analysis showed that the older the children, the less of them perform real help- ing acts of giving, X2(4) = 10.31, p < .05. The latter analysis indicated that the older