The roots of human altruism

Human infants as young as 14 to 18 months of age help others attain their goals, for example, by helping them to fetch out‐of‐reach objects or opening cabinets for them. They do this irrespective of any reward from adults (indeed external rewards undermine the tendency), and very likely with no conc...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The British journal of psychology 2009-08, Vol.100 (3), p.455-471
Main Authors: Warneken, Felix, Tomasello, Michael
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Achievement
Adult
Altruism
Animals
Babies
Behavior, Animal - physiology
Biological and medical sciences
Biological Evolution
Cabinet
Child
Child development
Chimpanzees
Conditioning, Operant - physiology
Cooperative Behavior
Developmental psychology
Feedback - physiology
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Goals
Helping Behavior
Human behaviour
Humans
Infant
Infant Behavior - physiology
Infants
Interpersonal Relations
Models, Psychological
Motivation
Newborn. Infant
Pan troglodytes
Pan troglodytes - physiology
Personality traits
Primates
Psychological effects
Psychology
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Reputation
Reward
Rewards
Selection, Genetic
Social cognition
Social interaction
Socialization
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Summary:Human infants as young as 14 to 18 months of age help others attain their goals, for example, by helping them to fetch out‐of‐reach objects or opening cabinets for them. They do this irrespective of any reward from adults (indeed external rewards undermine the tendency), and very likely with no concern for such things as reciprocation and reputation, which serve to maintain altruism in older children and adults. Humans' nearest primate relatives, chimpanzees, also help others instrumentally without concrete rewards. These results suggest that human infants are naturally altruistic, and as ontogeny proceeds and they must deal more independently with a wider range of social contexts, socialization and feedback from social interactions with others become important mediators of these initial altruistic tendencies.
ISSN:0007-1269
2044-8295
DOI:10.1348/000712608X379061