Family
Children learn to balance their own goals
Children’s social lives are complicated. They have to navigate their own desires, wishes, and impulses while learning to consider the needs of others and broader societal expectations. At times, children give in to their frustrations and pursue self-fulfilling goals at the expense of others (as do adults). But perhaps more commonly, children choose to engage in selfless acts of kindness (such as helping a stranger pick up cherry tomatoes).
Why do children choose to be kind?
Parents and other caregivers begin teaching their children kindness as soon as they are born by showing sensitivity to infants’ needs and modeling care and concern for their well-being. Over time, caregivers explicitly teach their children how and when to behave kindly toward others through demonstrations and conversations (e.g., “sharing is caring”).
To test the kindness-building function of moral pride
We also wanted to know whether children who experienced strong feelings of moral pride following acts like helping and sharing were also kind in their daily interactions with others.
Parents (in Canada) and teachers (in Japan) completed surveys and rated how likely it was for the participating children to engage in various acts of kindness (e.g., “My child/student often volunteers to help others [parents, teachers, other children”).
