What develops in children's development of altruism?

What develops in children’s development of altruism? ORLANDO M. LOURENÇO, University of Lisbon, Portugal Abstract Cognitive-developmental theories have maintained that children’s development of altruism does really mean a movement from centration to decentration. In this paper we make a different claim. Borrowing from the two micromodels Piaget used, in succession, to account for the child’s transition from preoperational to operational thought (i.e., a cost-gain model guided by the game theory, and an affirmationnegation model based on his equilibration theory), we suggest that children’s development of altruism represents a movement from centration or cost-perception to compensation or gain-construction. Ninety children at three age levels (30 5-year-olds, 30 7-year-olds, and 30 10-year-olds) were presented with four prosocial dilemmas appealing to sharing, donating, helping, and comforting. Children’s costperception/gain-construction competence was first assessed and then related to their level of altruism in an opportunity-to-donate situation. Consistent with our cost-perception/gain-construction approach, children became more likely with age to think of prosocial acts in terms of gain than in terms of cost. Positive associations between gain-construction competence and observed altruism were found. These results strengthen our Piagetian approach to children’s development of altruism. Key words: Altruism, Cost-perception, Gain-construction, Children, Piaget _________________

El desarrollo del altruismo em el niño ¿Qué es lo que se desarrolla? Resumen Los teóricos cognitivo-evolutivos han sostenido que el desarrollo del altruismo en el niño supone un camino desde la centración (foco en el yo) hasta la descentración (foco en el otro). En este artículo se defiende que lo ese desarrolla implica no es un camino desde la centración hasta la descentración, sino desde la centración o percepción de costos hasta la compensación o construcción de beneficios. Esta perceptiva teórica se basa en los dos modelos que Piaget utilizó, en momentos diferentes, para explicar la transición del pensamiento pre-operatorio hasta el pensamiento operatorio (un modelo funcional inspirado en la teoría de juegos y un modelo estructural basado en la teoría de la equilibración). Noventa niños (30 de 5 años; 30 de 7 años; y 30 de 10 años) fueron confrontados primero con cuatro dilemas pro-sociales y evaluados en su competencia para percibir costos/construir beneficios frente a actos pro-sociales. Se enfrentó luego a los niños con una situación de dádiva que permitía evaluar su conducta pro-social efectiva. De acuerdo con nuestra perspectiva teórica (percepción de costos/construcción de beneficios), los resultados demuestran que había: (1) una relación significativa entre edad y capacidad de construcción de beneficios; y (2) una asociación positiva significativa entre esa capacidad y la conducta pro-social de los niños en la situación de dádiva. Palabras Clave: Altruismo, Percepción de costos, Construcción de beneficios, Desarrollo, Piaget

_________________ Agradecimientos: The author would like to express his gratitude to the children, school principals, and teachers of a private school in the area of Lisbon (Colégio Valssassina) for their cooperation. He would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper. Portions of this research were presented at the XIth Biennial Meetings of the International Society for the Study of Behavioral Development (ISSBD), 3-7 July, 1991, University of Minnesota (USA). Correspondence regarding this article should be addressed to Orlando Lourenço, e-mail: [email protected] Original recibido: Noviembre, 1992; revisión recibida: Enero, 1994; aceptado: Junio, 1994. _________________ © Infancia y Aprendizaje, ISSBN: 0210-3702

Infancia y Aprendizaje, 1994, 67-68, 185-197.

186 _____________________________________________________________________________

Altruistic behavior has been generally defined “as behavior carried out to benefit another without anticipation of rewards from external sources” (Macaulay & Berkowitz, 1970a,. p. 3). Although many theorists (e.g., Batson, 1990) regard altruism as the quintessence of prosocial behavior, it has proved to be difficult, even impossible, to empirically distinguish truly altruistic behavior from external manifestations of prosocial behavior, such as helping, sharing, comforting, and donating (see Wallach & Wallach, 1991). This being so, no effort is made in this study to distinguish altruism and prosocial behavior. The development of the quality of prosocial behavior (i.e., one’s reasons for being altruistic) as well as its quantitative growth with age (i.e., the amount of goods shared or donated) have been an extensive topic of research in studies on altruism, sympathy and helping (see for reviews, Eisenberg, 1982; Radke-Yarrow, Zahn-Waxler, & Chapman, 1983). With regard to the former aspect, there is considerable evidence showing that with increasing age children become more likely to justify their prosocial acts in terms of empathy and enlarged reciprocity, and even justice motives, rather than in egocentric terms (e.g., Bar-Tal, Raviv, & Leiser, 1980; Eisenberg, Shell, Pasternack, Beller, Lennon, & Mathy, 1987). As for the growth of altruism with age, although previous studies have not generated consistent findings, reviews by Krebs (1970), Krebs and Van Hesteren (1994), Moore and Eisenberg (1984), Radke-Yarrow, Zahn-Waxler, & Chapman (1983), Staub (1979), and Underwood and Moore (1982a) mention numerous studies on children’s altruistic behavior that found that altruism increases with age (e.g., Froming, Allen, & Underwood, 1983; Ma & Leung, 1992; Underwood, Froming, & Moore, 1977). Thus, in general terms, there is considerable evidence that, at least during the latter half of the first decade of life “altruism increases with age” (Krebs, 1970, p. 290), with “older children sharing more often and more generously than younger ones” (Underwood & Mood, 1982b, p. 27). Up to now, theorists have put forth several hypotheses to explain the highly replicable finding that generosity increases with age, at least during the latter half of the first decade of life: the normative approach, the behavior-freeze hypothesis, the costreward model, and the cognitive-developmental theory (see, for review, Bryan, 1975; Lourenço, 1993). The main hypothesis to explain the correlation between age and prosocial behavior has been that advanced by cognitive-developmental theorists (e.g., Bar-Tal et al., 1980; Eisenberg, 1982; Krebs, 1978). In short, cognitive-developmental theorists have maintained that children’s development of altruism does really mean a movement from centration (i.e., a focus on one’s self) to decentration (i.e., a focus on the needy others). According to cognitive-developmental theorists, the lower egocentrism of older children enables them to take another’s view of the world and his effective states (see Eisenberg & Miller, 1987; Underwood & Moore, 1982a). For instance, Bar-Tal and his colleagues (1980) have defended that children’s prosocial motivations go through different stages. That is, from a stage of prosocial behavior guided by obedience or concrete rewards and punishments (stage 1), children attain a stage of true altruism (stage 6) or a stage of prosocial behavior only interested in others’ welfare. However much the growth of altruism in children may be related to their increasing capacity to take another’s view of the world, this relation has not always been found (Severy & Davis, 1971). Thus, the availability of a particular perspective-taking does not ensure that children will behave in a prosocial manner when confronted with needy others (see, for example, Blasi, 1980; Eisenberg-Berg & Lennon, 1980).

187 ______________________________________________________________________ Borrowing from the two micromodels Piaget used, in succession, to account for the child’s transition from preoperational to operational thought (i.e., a model guided by the game theory; see Piaget, 1957, and a model based on the equilibration theory; see Piaget, 1974, 1975), we claim that it might be heuristic to think of children’s development of altruism as a movement from centration to compensation rather than a movement from centration to a mere decentration. That is, as a process through which the child comes to know that his/her prosocial behavior is suitable for fulfillment not only others’ needs and desires, but also one’s interests and wants. If this were the case, then, to an extent, it would be possible to reconcile the very often opposition between “egoistic” and “altruistic” motivations, on the one hand (see Dovidio, 1991), and between functional and structural perspectives on children’s growth of altruism, on the other (see Bart-Tal & Raviv, 1982). Furthermore, the conceptualization of children’s development of altruism as a movement from centration to compensation seems to be heuristic to implement programs aimed at promoting children’s prosocial behavior and, thus, at producing a “better” world. As is well known, Piaget, in 1957, outlined the possibility of explaining the child’s transition from preoperational to operational thought through a model guided by the game theory and, therefore, by a theory involving a cost-gain evaluation. More precisely, Piaget (1957) maintained that younger children’s centrations are very simple (low cost), but they also lead to incorrect judgments (small gain). In contrast, older children’s operations “are more complex in that they are directed to transformations rather than to configurations.” (p. 57). In other words, children’s operations, in contrast with their centrations, represent a behavior of equilibrium” which is, at the same time, more costly and more productive” (p. 58). Later on, Piaget (1974) claimed that younger children’s centrations are due to a “disequilibrium between affirmations and negations, with the former having more ‘weight’ than the latter” (p. 5). That is, younger children are primarily affirmative and not capable of negation due to the fact that “the positive characteristics of objects or actions are given directly, as observable, where the negative ones imply, in different degrees, inferential mechanisms related to the anticipated results of those actions” (p. 17). The integration of these two Piagetian micromodels and its application to children’s growth of altruism allows us to suggest that younger children are less altruistic than older ones because of their pervasive tendency to think of prosocial acts in terms of cost and affirmation (i.e., cost-perception), and thus, because of their inability to think of them in terms of gain and negation (i.e., gain-construction; see Lourenço, 1990, 1993). In fact, the “cost” aspect involved in any prosocial act seems to be its most salient, direct, and figurative characteristic, that is, a Piagetian affirmation; on the contrary, the “gain” aspect involved in a prosocial act seems to be its most inferential, delayed and operative characteristic, that is, a Piagetian negation. Previous data from a cross-sectional study (Lourenço, 1990) and from a longitudinal one (Lourenço, 1993) found that: (1) with increasing age, children become more likely to think of prosocial acts in terms of gain than cost; and (2) children’s increasing tendency to think of prosocial acts in terms of gain-construction seems to be a truly developmental phenomenon, that is, a phenomenon moving upwards (i.e., from costperception to gain-construction) and without apparent regression. The central goal of the present study was to provide additional data which could strengthen or challenge the possibility of explaining children’s development of altruism as a progressive equilibration between actions involving low cost, but also a small gain

188 ______________________________________________________________________ (i.e., cost-perception) and actions which involve greater cost, but also a larger gain (i.e., gain-construction). That is, the possibility of considering children’s development of altruism as a movement from centration (i.e., to only think of one’s interests) to compensation (i.e., to be able to find personal gains to compensate for the inevitable costs involved in one’s prosocial acts) rather than a movement from centration (i.e., focus on one’s self) to decentration (focus on the needy others). There were two empirical goals in this study. First, to replicate previous findings related to the main hypothesis of our Piagetian approach to children’s development of altruism: With increasing age, children become more likely to consider altruistic acts in terms of gain-construction rather than in terms of cost-perception. In previous studies, children’s cost-perception/gain-construction competence has been assessed through a single task, that is, a task appealing only to one modality of prosocial behavior (i.e., comforting). The present study includes four cost-perception/gain-construction tasks, that is, four prosocial dilemmas (comforting, sharing, helping and donating). We did so in order to obtain a broader measure of children’s cost-perception/gain-construction competence. The second empirical goal of this study was to test the connection between children’s competence to construct physical, psychological or moral gain in prosocial acts and their effective prosocial behavior in an opportunity-to-donate situation. In fact, in addition to predicting that with age children become more likely to think of prosocial acts in terms of gain than cost (hypothesis 1), our Piagetian approach to children’s development of altruism also maintains that there is a positive association between reasoning (i.e., children’s competence to construct gain in prosocial acts) and their altruistic/prosocial behavior (hypothesis 2). To test our hypothesis 2, we correlated children’s scores on the cost-perception/gain-construction tasks with their level of altruism in an opportunity-do-donate situation. METHOD Subjects Subjects were 30 5-6-year-olds (16 boys and 14 girls); 30 7-8-year-olds (14 girls and 16 boys), and 30 10-11-year-olds (16 boys and 14 girls). Since there was no reason to anticipate sex differences with regard to both cost-perception/gain-construction competence and level of altruism in the opportunity-to-donate situation, no attempt was made to get equal numbers of girls and boys in each age group. The mean age for each age level was 5 years, 7 months; 7 years, 9 months; and 10 years, 8 months, respectively. These age levels were chosen because previous research on age-related effects on prosocial behavior has found that, at least during the latter half of the first decade of life, altruism increases with age. Children were selected from several classes at a private school in the area of Lisbon. All the children were white and came primarily from uppermiddle class families. The educational level of their parents could not be determined. Procedure Children were individually interviewed in a spare room at the school. After greeting the child, the experimenter explained that he was carrying out a study to know

189 _____________________________________________________________________ how children think about certain things, and he emphasized that there were no right or wrong answers. Children were then presented with the tasks described in what follows: Tasks and measures A. Cost-perception/gain-construction tasks These tasks were designed to assess the child’s capacity to construct some gain in a prosocial dilemma. More precisely, children were successively presented with the following four prosocial dilemmas: sharing/not sharing; donating/not donating; helping/not helping, and comforting/not comforting. There were masculine and feminine version for each dilemma (story). For instance, children were confronted with the following dilemmas (sharing/not sharing, and comforting/not comforting, feminine versions, Portuguese names): This is Paula. She is as old as you. Paula is now at school. One day, she was hungry, but had no food to eat. Then, she asked Sara to share her sandwich with her. Sara, however, was also hungry and had only that sandwich to eat. If she shared her food, she would only eat half of her sandwich and be hungry (sharing/not sharing). This is Maria and that is Ana. They are as old as you. When they were going to a birthday party, Maria slipped, hurt her arm and couldn’t go to the party. Then she asked Ana to stay with her and not to go to the party. Ana, however, wanted to go to the party in order to meet her friends and eat some cakes. If she stayed with Maria, she couldn’t go to the party, meet her friends, and eat some cakes (comforting/not comforting). As is shown in each of these two examples (feminine versions, sharing/not sharing and comforting/not comforting), each dilemma described a possible recipient (i.e., a needy character) and a possible donator (i.e., a character in possession of some goods). If the potential donator chose to be altruistic/prosocial, then s/he would have to sacrifice some of his/her interests, needs, or desires. Drawings were used to draw children’s attention to the presented prosocial dilemma, and to make the task more concrete and comprehensible to the child being interviewed. For example, with respect to the sharing/not sharing prosocial dilemma (see above), drawing 1 depicts Paula asking Sara to share her sandwich with her. Drawing 2 shows that Sara is sharing her sandwich with Paula. Drawing 3 depicts Sara eating her whole sandwich, and thus, not sharing her sandwich with Paula. The order in which the four dilemmas were presented to children was counterbalanced. For each dilemma, children were asked the following questions, in fixed order. 1. Where do you think this boy/girl is going to feel happier and more satisfied: Here (experimenter points to the “altruistic” drawing) or there (the experimenter points to the “egoistic” drawing)? Why? (Indirect cost-perception/gain-construction evaluation).

190 ______________________________________________________________________ 2. Where do you think this boy/girl is going to gain more: Here (egoistic alternative) or there (altruistic alternative)? Why? (Direct cost-perception/gainconstruction assessment). The order of presentation of the two alternatives in each question was counterbalanced. Children’s answers were written verbatim and coded, later on, as costperception or gain-construction responses. Gain-construction responses where those anticipating some gain (physical, psychological, or moral) for the altruistic alternative of the potential donator. Examples: “Sara feels more pleased when she shares her sandwich with Paula because Paula will be quite willing to share her food with Sara in the future” (physical gain); “Sara feels happier when she shares her sandwich with Paula because Paula will be closer to Sara after that” (psychological gain); “Sara gains more when she shares her sandwich with Paula because she did a good action” (moral gain). Costperception responses were those anticipating some cost for the altruistic alternative of the potential donator, and hence, some gain for the egoistic alternative. “Ana feels happier when she didn’t stay with Maria. If she stayed with Maria, she couldn’t go the party and eat cakes”; “Ana gains more when she decided not to stay with Maria. If she stayed, she couldn’t meet her friends in the party.” Thus, children’s choice of the egoistic/altruistic alternative on both questions 1 and 2 was considered an indirect or direct costperception/gain-construction response, respectively. In addition to this, children’s scores of gain-construction competence were also calculated. These scores could range from 0 (if children gave only cost-perception responses to both questions on every dilemma) to 8 (if children gave only gainconstruction responses to both questions on the four presented prosocial dilemmas). Because parametric statistical analyses were not judged to be appropriate, there was a subsequent distribution of the gain-scores in three categories (low: from 0 to 3; middle: 4; and high: from 5 to 8). As controversial as this uneven distribution may be, we decided to do it in order to guarantee that both high and low gain-scores would actually include the scores above or below the middle score (score 4); more than 4 (high scores) or less than 4 (low scores), respectively. B. Opportunity-to-donate situation. After being presented with the cost-perception/gain construction tasks, children were given an opportunity to donate to their schoolmates, who had not participated in the study, some of the goods they had received for their participation in the study (i.e., six colored fruit-gums). In the experimental room there was a box, with a little aperture, in which each child could leave his/her donations. Children were told that they might keep them all, or donate them to their schoolmates, or donate some and keep some for themselves. Before leaving the room, the experimenter emphasized that no one would come of know of children’s donations. The child was then reminded not to talk to other children about the study. When the child returned to the classroom, the experimenter determined how many fruit-gums, if any, had been added to the donation box. As artificial and contrived this situation may appear, it should be emphasized that our experimental children were told that their schoolmates had not received any fruitgums, although they wanted to. In addition, the children were also told that their donations would be given to their schoolmates at the end of the study. Finally, this kind of opportunity-to-donate situation has been often used for studying children’s developmental of prosocial behavior (e.g., Bar-Tal et al., 1980). This is probably due to the fact that such an opportunity-to-donate situation seems to constitute an “easy escape”

191 ______________________________________________________________________ situation or condition (see Batson, 1987, 990) and, thus, well suitable for giving an idea of children’s prosocial behavior. Children’s behavior in the opportunity-to-donate situation was classified as altruistic (if children donated any of their fruit-gums) or egoistic (if children did not donate any of their fruit-gums). RESULTS Children’s gain-construction competence Table 1 presents the frequency of the children’s types of gain-construction scores on the cost-perception/gain-construction tasks as a function of age. TABLE 1 Frequency of children’s types of gain-construction scores as a function of age ______________________________________________________________________ GAIN-CONSTRUCTION SCORES 1 _____________________________________________________ AGE LEVE (YEARS) 2 LOW MIDDLE HIGH ______________________________________________________________________ 5-6

21

4

5

7-8

7

0

23

10-11 2 1 27 ______________________________________________________________________ 1

Low: from 0 to 3; Middle: 4; High: from 5 to 8.

2

N = 30 for each age level.

As stated earlier, our Piagetian approach to children’s development of altruism would be strengthened if previous findings showing that children become more likely with age to consider prosocial acts in terms of gain than cost were replicated even when a composite measure of the child’s cost-perception/gain-construction competence was used. Analysis of Table 1 shows that children’s gain-construction competence increases with age. In fact, the majority of low gain-construction scores were assigned to the youngest children, whereas the majority of high-construction scores were assigned to the oldest ones. A Jonckheere test for ordered alternatives revealed a significant relationship between age and gain-construction competence, J = 5.50, p < 0.001, with older children being more gain-constructors than younger ones. Post hoc multiple-comparisons tests showed that both intermediate and older children scored significantly higher than 5-6year-olds (p < 0.01 for both cases). Although 10-11-year-olds scored higher than 7-8year-olds, this difference is not statistically significant (p > 0.05). Children’s tendency to become more likely with age to think of prosocial acts in terms of gain rather than cost also appears if we analyze the frequency of their costperception/gain construction responses to every prosocial dilemma as a function of age (see Table 2). In fact, chi-square tests showed a significant relationship between age and

192 ______________________________________________________________________ cost-perception/gain-construction responses for every prosocial dilemma, with intermediate and older children being more gain-constructors than younger ones, 2 (2) = 37.0; 54.2; 34.6; and 26.1, for sharing, donating, helping, and comforting, respectively (p < 0.001 for all cases) TABLE 2 Children’s frequency of cost-perception/gain-construction responses on every prosocial dilemma as a function of age _________________________________________________________________________________ AGE LEVEL SHARING DONATING HELPING COMFORTING (YEARS) 1 COST GAIN COST GAIN COST GAIN COST GAIN __________________________________________________________________________________ 5-6 39 21 44 16 33 27 37 23 7-8 12 48 12 48 11 49 21 39 10-11 11 49 9 51 6 54 10 50 __________________________________________________________________________________ 1 N = 30 for each age level. Cells could range from 0 to 60 because responses to questions 1 and 2 on each dilemma were combined.

On the whole, the cross-sectional data of the present study replicate earlier findings (Lourenço, 1990, 1993) and show that with increasing age children become more likely to think of prosocial acts in terms of gain (gain-construction) rather than in terms of cost (cost-perception). Children’s gain-construction competence and level of altruism. A central claim in our Piagetian, cost-perception/gain-construction approach to children’s growth of altruism is that the child’s competence to construct some gain in prosocial acts is positively associated with his/her level of altruism. Table 3 presents the frequency of altruistic and egoistic children in the donation situation as a function of age and gain-construction scores. Analysis of the data in Table 3 shows that the number of altruistic children increased with age. In fact, the majority of younger children (21 out of TABLE 3 Frequency of altruistic and egoistic children as a function of age and gain-construction scores

______________________________________________________________________ AGE LEVEL (YEARS)1 GAIN 5-6 7-8 10-11 SCORES2 ALTRUISTIC/EGOISTIC ALTRUISTIC/EGOISTIC ALTRUISTIC/EGOISTIC3 __________________________________________________________________________________ Low 5 16 3 4 2 0 Middle 2 2 0 0 1 0 High 2 3 20 3 24 3 ____________________________________________________________________________________ 1 N = 30 for each age level; 2Low scores = from 0 to 3; Middle scores = 4; High scores = from 5 to 8; 3 Egoistic = children who didn’t donate any gum; Altruistic = children who donate some or all of their gums.

30) were egoistic, whereas the majority of older ones were altruistic (27 out 30). Qui square tests revealed a significant relationship between age and generosity, 2 (2) = 26.34,

193 ______________________________________________________________________ p < 0.001, with intermediate and older children being more altruistic than younger ones (p < 0.001 for both cases). No significant difference between 7-8 and 10-11-year-olds was found. Descriptively, it should be said that children’s pattern of altruism in the donation situation is similar to that observed in the cost-perception/gain-construction tasks. Actually, there were in both cases significant differences between younger children and intermediate or older ones, but not between older children and intermediate ones. To test the hypothesis that children’s gain-construction competence was positively associated with their level of generosity, we correlated children’s gain-construction scores with the ranked measures of observed altruism in the opportunity-to-donate situation. Since there were some null cells (i.e., cells with a zero frequency), a chi-square test for testing that hypothesis was not an appropriate test. Nonparametric Spearman correlations corrected for tied ranks showed that children’s gain-construction scores were significantly, although moderately, associated with the level of observed altruism: Rs ( for younger children) = 0.364, p < 0.05 (one-tailed); Rs (for intermediate age children) = 0.385, p < 0.05 (one tailed), and Rs (for older children) = 0.352, p < 0.05 (one tailed). To sum up, the correlational data of this study seem to support the hypothesis 2 (i.e., there is a positive association between children’s competence to construct gain in prosocial acts and their effective altruistic/prosocial behavior) of our costperception/gain-construction approach to children’s development of altruism. DISCUSSION The increase if altruism with age has proved to be a highly replicable finding in studies on prosocial behavior (see Underwood & Moore, 1982a). As Bryan (1975) pointed out, “there is considerable evidence that altruism is positively correlated with age, at least during the latter half of the first decade of life.” (p.163). A somewhat appealing explanation of the relationship between age and generosity is that older children are more altruistic than younger ones simply because their reduced egocentric enables them to assume another’s view of the world. That is, according to cognitive-developmental theorists (e.g., Bar-Tal et al., 1980; Eisenberg, 1982; Krebs, 1978), children’s development of altruism does really mean a movement from centration to decentration. Borrowing from the two micromodels which Piaget used, in succession, to account for the child’s transition from preoperational to operational thought (i.e., a costgain model, Piaget, 1957; and the equilibration theory based on the initial priority of affirmations over negations, Piaget, 1974), the cost-perception/gain-construction approach (Lourenço, 1990, 1993) maintains that children’s development of altruism represents a movement from centration or cost-perception to compensation or gainconstruction, and not merely a movement from centration to decentration. The central goal of this study was to provide some data that could strengthen our Piagetian theoretical perspective. There were two specific goals: to replicate previous findings that show that with increasing age children become more likely to think of prosocial acts in terms of gain rather than cost, and test the hypothesis that children’s level of altruism is positively related to their gain-construction capacity. As for our first

194 ______________________________________________________________________ goal, the results of the present study show that with increasing age children become more likely to interpret prosocial acts in terms of gain-construction rather than in terms of costperception (see Table 1). These results replicate earlier findings (Lourenço, 1990, 1993), and are consistent with previous studies on children’s capacity to think of altruism as a self-reinforcer (e.g., Cialdini, Kenrick, & Baumann, 1982) and on children’s competence to coordinate affirmations and negations (Piaget, 1974). It should be mentioned, however, that in the present study, in contrast with earlier findings (Lourenço, 1990), there were no significant differences between 7-8 and 10-11 –year-old children’s gain-construction competence. Since in this study children’s gainconstruction competence was assessed on four prosocial dilemmas (sharing, donating, helping, and comforting) and previous studies used only a single prosocial dilemma (e.g., Lourenço, 1990), one might think that children’s reasoning was affected by the content of the dilemmas. Given than children’s frequency of cost-perception/gain-construction responses varied across dilemmas (see Table 2), such a possibility seems to be a plausible explanation of the discrepancy between this paper’s results and those from earlier studies. If this were the case, one might also speculate that moral and prosocial reasoning are not as structural as some cognitive-developmental theorists have traditionally assumed (e.g., Kohlberg, 1984). As for the second specific goal, the correlational data of this study provide empirical support for the posited relationship between children’s gain-construction competence and their degree of effective prosocial behavior. In fact, significant and positive relationships were found between these two variables at every age (see Table 3). In this vein, it is worth noting that the pattern found for children’s gain-construction has been like that observed for the degree of prosocial behavior. In effect, in both cases, 5-6year-olds scored significantly lower than either 7-8 or 10-11-year-olds, there being no significant difference between intermediate and older children. Thus, these results suggest that children’s growth of altruism may be conceptualized as a movement form centration or cost-perception to compensation or gain-construction. Because of this, altruistic behavior could be also regarded as a risk-taking activity (Greenbaum, 1991). As alluded to in the Introduction section, the conceptualization of children’s development of altruism as a movement from centration or cost-perception to compensation or gain-construction seems to be heuristic in several respects. First of all, such a perspective enables us to think of altruism as involving costs and gains and, thus, to overcome the endless altruism versus egoism debate (see Dovidio, 1991). As Dovidio points out “both altruistic and egoistic motives can exist simultaneously within a single organism” (p.126). Second, our Piagetian, cost-perception/gain-construction approach allows us to reconcile functional and structural dimensions in children’s development of prosocial behavior. However much children’s growth of altruism may be controlled by their specific and individual experiences (i.e., functional aspects), there seems to be no doubt that such experiences are mediated by general cognitive processes which evolve with the passage of time (i.e., structural aspects). Third, the idea of seeing children’s development of altruism as a movement from cost-perception to gain-construction can be of help to promote children’s prosocial in the schools. In fact, one may speculate that the more children are taught to construct material, psychological, and moral gains in prosocial acts, the more altruistic they may become. Finally, our cost-perception/gain-construction approach may help us to better understand the frequent inconsistency between one’s altruistic cognitions and one’s altruistic actions (see Eisenberg, 1986).

195 ______________________________________________________________________ Be that as it may, the results of the present study should be interpreted cautiously. First of all, it must be recognized that although the correlations between children’s gainconstruction scores and their level of altruism in the opportunity-to-donate situation have been significant, they are only moderate. This amounts to acknowledging that children’s prosocial behavior is multidimensional (see Hampson, 1981) and, hence, not determined only by children’s gain-construction competence. Furthermore, it should be also stressed that children’s altruistic behavior was assessed in a very contrived situation and involving only a single modality of generosity (i.e., donation). Second, one might also speculate that our data could be interpreted from another theoretical perspective, For instance, it could be argued that what seems to matter in the development of prosocial behavior is a set of capacities that go beyond one’s costperception (affirmation)/gain-construction (negation) competence, and that those capacities have much to do with what Loevinger (1976) calls ego development, and Kohlberg (1984) called moral development. In addition to this, we also accept the idea that our Piagetian interpretation of children’s development of altruism is too rational – i.e., that prosocial behavior can be motivated by immediate affective rewards of an emphatic nature, and not merely by cognitive constructions of gain (see Batson, 1987, 1990). Be that as it may, it should be emphasized that these possible explanations of children’s development of altruism would be far from being out of criticism. As is known, the problem of defining criteria for validating theoretical explanations is still a highly controversial issue (see Overton, 1984). Moreover, we are not claiming that previous explanations of children’s development of altruism are “wrong”, nor that the explanation underlying this study is the most “right” ever presented. Finally, we also recognize that the idea of considering the child’s cost-perception a Piagetian affirmation, and the child’s gain-construction a Piagetian negation is perhaps based on quite a liberal interpretation of Piaget’s theory that might not be evident for everyone who understands Piaget’s theory. All in all, the present findings provide additional support for the possibility of interpreting children’s development of altruism as a coordination between figurative (i.e., the cost aspect) and operative (i.e., the gain aspect) features involved in prosocial acts and, hence, as a progressive coordination between actions which involve low cost, but also a small gain (cost-perception), and actions which involve greater cost, but also a larger gain (i.e., gain-construction). However, attempting to see the development of prosocial behavior in children by integrating the two aforementioned Piagetian micromodels should be considered a project requiring further conceptual and empirical efforts. REFERENCES BAR-TAL, D., RAVIV, A. (1982). A cognitive-learning model of helping behavior development. In N. Eisenberg (Ed.), The development of prosocial behavior (pp. 199-216). New York: Academic Press. BAR-TAL, D., RAVIV, A., & LEISER, T. (1980). The development of altruistic behavior: Empirical evidence. Developmental Psychology, 16, 516-525. BATSON, C. (1987). Prosocial motivation: Is it ever truly altruistic? In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (pp. 65-112) New York: Academic Press. BATSON. C. (1990). How social an animal? The human capacity for caring. American Psychologist, 45, 336-346. BERKOWITZ. L. (l972). Social norms, feelings, and other factors affecting helping behavior and altruism. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (pp. 63-108). NY: Academic Press

196 _____________________________________________________________________________ BLASI, A. (1980). Bridging moral cognition and moral action: A critical review of the literature. Psychological Bulletin, 88, 1-45. BRYAN, L. (1975). Children’s cooperation and helping behaviors. In E. Hetherington (Ed.), Review of child development (pp. 127-181). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. CIALDINI, R., KENRICK, D., & BAUMANN, D. (1982). Effects of mood on prosocial behavior in children and adults. In N. Eisenberg (Ed.), The development of prosocial behavior (pp. 339-359). New York: Academic Press. DOVIDIO, J. (1984). Helping behavior and altruism: An empirical and conceptual overview. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (pp. 362-427). New York: Academic Press. DOVIDIO, J. (1991). Commentaries: The empathy-altruism hypothesis: Paradigm and promise. Psychological Inquiry, 2, 126-128. EISENBERG, N. (1982). The development of altruism regarding prosocial behavior. In N. Eisenberg (Ed.), The development of prosocial behavior (219-249). New York: Academic Press. EISENBERG, N. (1986). Altruistic emotion, cognition, and behavior. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. EISENBERG-BERG, N., & MILLER, P. (1987). The relation of empathy to prosocial and related behaviors. Psychological Bulletin, 101, 91-119. EISENBERG, N., SHELL, R., PASTERNACK, J., BELLER, R., LENNON, R., & MATHY, R. (1987). Prosocial development in adolescence: A longitudinal study. Developmental Psychology, 23, 712718. EISENBERG-BERG, N., & LENNON, R. (1980). Altruism and assessment of empathy in the preschool years. Child Development, 51, 552- 557. FROMING, W., ALLEN, A., & UNDERWOOD, B. (1983). Age and generosity reconsidered. Child Development, 54, 585-593. GREENBAUM, C. (1991). Personal communication at XI Biennial Meetings of the ISSBD. University of Minnesota. HAMPSON, R. (1981). Helping behavior in children: A person-situation model. Developmental Review, 1, 93-112. KOHLBERG, L. (1984). Essays on moral development. Vol.2: The psychology of moral development: Moral stages, their nature, and validation. San Francisco: Haper & Row. KREBS, D. (1970). Altruism: An examination of the concept and a review of the literature. Psychological Bulletin, 73, 258-302. KREBS, D. (1978). A cognitive-developmental approach to altruism. In L. Wispé (Ed.), Altruism, sympathy, and helping (pp. 141- 164). New York: Academic Press. KREBS, D., & VAN HESTEREN, F. (1994). The development of altruism: Toward an integrative model. Developmental Review, 14, 103- 158. LOEVINGER; J. (1976). Ego Development: Concepts and theories. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. LOURENÇO, O. (1990). From cost-perception to gain-construction: Toward a Piagetian explanation of the development of altruism in children. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 13, 119132. LOURENÇO, O. (1993). Toward a Piagetian explanation of children’s development of prosocial behavior in: The force of negation. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 11, 91-106. MA, H., & LEUNG, M. (1992). Effects of age, sex, and social relationship on the altruistic behavior of Chinese children. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 153, 293-303. MACAULAY, J., & BERKOWITZ, L. (1970). Overview. In J. Macaulay & L. Berkowitz (Eds.), Altruism and helping behavior (pp. 1-19). New York: Academic Press. MIDLARSKY, E., & HANNAH, M. (1985). Competence, reticence, and helping by children and adolescents. Developmental Psychology, 21, 534-541. MOORE, B., & EISENBERG, N. (1984). The development of altruism. In Whitehurst (Ed.), Annals of child development. Vol. 1 (pp. 107-174). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press. OVERTON, W. (1984). World views and their influence on psychological theory and research: KuhnLakatos-Laudan. In H. Reese (Ed.), Advances in child development and behavior (pp. 191-226). New York: Academic Press. PIAGET, J. (1957). Logique et équilibre. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. PIAGET, J. (1974). Recherches sur la contradiction. Vol 2. Les relations entre affirmations et négations. Paris : Presses Universitaires de France. PIAGET, J. (1975). L’équilibration des structures cognitives. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

197 _________________________________________________________________________________ RADKE-YARROW, M., ZAHN-WAXLER, C., & CHAPMAN, M. (1983). Children’s prosocial dispositions and behavior. In P. Mussen (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology. Vol. IV (pp. 469-545). New York: Wiley. SEVERY, L., & DAVIS, K. (1971). Helping behavior among normal and retarded children. Child Development, 42, 1017-1031. STAUB, E. (1979). Positive social behavior and morality. Vol. 2. New York: Academic Press. UNDERWOOD, B., FROMING, W., & MOORE, B. (1977). Mood, attention, and altruism: A search for mediating variables. Developmental Psychology, 13, 541-542. UNDERWOOD, B., & MOORE, B. (1982a). Perspective-taking and altruism. Psychological Bulletin, 91, 143-173. UNDERWOOD, B., & MOORE; B. (1982b). The generality of altruism in children, In N. Eisenberg (Ed.), The development of prosocial behavior (pp. 25-52). New York: Academic Press. WALLACH, L., & WALLACH, M. (1991). Commentaries: Why altruism, even though it exists, cannot be demonstrated by social psychological experiments. Psychological Inquiry, 2, 153-155.

RESUMEN EXTENSO Los datos procedentes de numerosos estudios empíricos apuntan al hecho de que con la edad los niños son cada vez más altruistas, esto es, más capaces de manifestar conductas prosociales como compartir, dar, ayudar y reconfortar (Eisenberg, 1982). Hasta la presente, los teóricos han propuesto cuatro explicaciones a ese aumento o desarrollo: enfoque normativo (Berkowitz, 1972), hipótesis de la conducta inhibida (Midlarsky & Hannah, 1985), perspectiva de pérdidas-beneficios (Dovidio, 1984) y teoría cognitivo-evolutiva (Bar- Tal et al., 1980). En este artículo se sugiere una nueva perspectiva teórica para explicar el desarrollo de la conducta pro-social en el niño. Tal perspectiva – percepción de costos/construcción de beneficios – se basa en Piaget e integra dos modelos que él utilizó, en momentos diferentes, para explicar la transición del pensamiento pre-operatorio al pensamiento operatorio. Más concretamente, integra un micro-modelo guiado por la teoría de juegos, que involucra una evaluación de costos/beneficios (Piaget, 1957), y un micro-modelo inspirado en la teoría de equilibración (Piaget, 1975) y en la prioridad inicial de las afirmaciones sobre las negaciones (Piaget, 1974). Según la perspectiva de costos/beneficios, el desarrollo del altruismo en el niño es el camino que va desde la centración, percepción de costos o afirmación piagetiana hasta la compensación, construcción de beneficios o negación piagetiana. Este estudio tenía dos objetivos empíricos. (1) Replicar estudios anteriores (Lourenço, 1990, 1993) que demuestran que con la edad los niños san capaces de pensar los actos prosociales más en términos de beneficios (construcción de beneficios) que en términos de costos (percepción de costos); y (2) examinar si la competencia del niño para construir beneficios (materiales, psicológicos, morales) ante actos pro-sociales va asociada a su conducta pro-social efectiva en una situación de dádiva. En esto estudio participaran 90 niños: 30 de 5-6 años; 30 de 7-8 años; y 30 de 10-11 años. Cada niño hacía dos tareas. En la primera tarea (tarea de percepción de costos/construcción de beneficios) se evaluaba su capacidad de construir beneficios ante cuatro dilemas pro-sociales (compartir/no compartir, dar/no dar, ayudar/no ayudar y reconfortar/no reconfortar). En la segunda tarea (situación de dádiva), cada niño era invitado a ofrecer a otros niños algunas de las recompensas (6 golosinas) que había recibido por su participación en el estudio. Los resultados demuestran que había (1) una relación significativa entre edad y capacidad de construir beneficios (test de Jonckheere para alternativas ordenadas); y (2) una asociación significativa positiva entre capacidad de construcción de beneficios del niño y su conducta pro-social en la situación de dádiva (coeficiente de correlación de Spearman). Estos dos resultados son consistentes con nuestra perspectiva piagetiana para explicar el desarrollo del altruismo en el niño, y sugieren que a comprensión de tal desarrollo está lejos de ser completamente resuelta.