Social status and prenatal testosterone exposure assessed via second-to-fourth digit ratio affect 6–9-year-old children’s prosocial choices

Prosocial behaviour (i.e., voluntary behaviour intended to benefit another) seems to be fully developed in children by the age of 6 years. However, questions about which factors modify prosocial behaviour at that age remain understudied. Here we used a resource allocation paradigm to test prosocial...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific reports 2018-06, Vol.8 (1), p.9198-11, Article 9198
Main Authors: Horn, Lisa, Hungerländer, Niklas A., Windhager, Sonja, Bugnyar, Thomas, Massen, Jorg J. M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
631/181/2469
631/477/2811
Androgens
Child
Children
Elementary school teachers
Female
Humanities and Social Sciences
Humans
Male
multidisciplinary
Pregnancy
Prenatal experience
Prenatal Exposure Delayed Effects - psychology
Resource allocation
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Social Behavior
Social interactions
Testosterone
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Prosocial behaviour (i.e., voluntary behaviour intended to benefit another) seems to be fully developed in children by the age of 6 years. However, questions about which factors modify prosocial behaviour at that age remain understudied. Here we used a resource allocation paradigm to test prosocial behaviour in 6–9-year-old school children. They could decide between a “selfish” (i.e., one sticker for themselves) and a “prosocial” option (i.e., one sticker for themselves and one for the receiver) and we tested whether friendship, social status and prenatal androgen exposure (approximated by the 2nd to 4th digit ratio; 2D:4D) influenced children’s prosocial choices. We found that children behaved prosocially, and that their prosocial tendencies were negatively correlated with prenatal androgen exposure; i.e., children with high 2D:4D ratios (reflecting low prenatal androgen exposure) acted more prosocially than children with low 2D:4D ratios. Further, their social status in the classroom influenced their choices: children with fewer interaction partners chose the “prosocial” option more often than more ‘popular’ children. However, they did so irrespectively of whether they were paired with a recipient or not. Our results highlight the importance of considering social, as well as physiological factors when investigating prosocial behaviour in children.
ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/s41598-018-27468-0