Developmental Psychology

Prevalence and characteristics of infants’ prosocial helping strategies between 11 and 20 months of age.
Although limited research suggests that infants can behave prosocially even before their first birthdays, the prevalence and characteristics of early prosocial behaviors remain unexplored. Indeed, very few studies of prosocial development have included 12-month-old infants or examined how prosociality changes across the second year, and none has assessed individual differences in prosocial strategy use. This study investigated prosocial helping behaviors in a racially and socioeconomically diverse sample of 220 11- to 20-month-olds living in the United States (45.5% female; 61% Black; 67.2% low socioeconomic status). At 12 months (n = 153), > 80% of infants helped an experimenter retrieve out-of-reach items. Modest increases in helping were observed across the second year of life. Individual differences in specific helping strategies were also detected. Infants who helped more by handing an item to an experimenter on one task (rather than placing the item in a target location) also helped more by handing on another task; similar patterns were found with placing. Moreover, the type of strategy was associated with age and sex: older infants and male infants used more placing. The high rates of helping by 12 months of age and the use of individual helping strategies demonstrate that infants have robust prosocial abilities beyond those previously documented. These findings contribute critical information about the typical development of prosocial behaviors in the largest and most racially and socioeconomically diverse sample of infants to date. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
Do future actions matter more than past deeds? Temporal moral attribution in U.S. and Chinese school-age children.
This study examines how children attribute moral responsibilities to their past and future actions and what role culture plays in children’s temporal moral attribution. A total of 346 U.S. and Chinese 6–7 and 8- to 9-year-old children were randomly assigned to a past or future condition, in which they answered questions about their moral/immoral actions in hypothetical scenarios described as occurring in the last week or the next week. Whereas U.S. 8- to 9-year-olds favored more praise and reward for their future good deeds than past ones, Chinese 8- to 9-year-olds favored more praise and reward for their past good deeds than future ones. Chinese children also moralized their actions to a greater extent than U.S. children, and children reasoned about their moral/immoral actions in line with their cultural beliefs. Interesting age differences also emerged, suggesting the continuing development of mental time travel and moral cognition across middle childhood. The findings shed new light on the important role of time in moral judgment that is constrained by development progressions in mental time travel and specific to the cultural context. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
A longitudinal, mixed methods study exploring the impact of civic engagement on psychosocial outcomes across early to mid adulthood.
Civic engagement during emerging adulthood plays a pivotal role in fostering a sense of community responsibility, providing a sense of societal purpose, and contributes to improved psychological adjustment. In this mixed-method longitudinal study, we further explored how civic engagement and psychological adjustment codevelop across emerging adulthood. Participants were drawn from The Future’s Study, a Canadian longitudinal study capturing the transition to adulthood in Southwestern Ontario. The sample was predominantly White (81%), female identifying (71%), and largely affluent with 5.8% reporting lower than average family income. At ages 23, 26, and 32, participants completed measures of civic engagement, depression, and optimism; at age 26, participants had the opportunity to also complete a life story interview where they were asked to recount a key community scene from their lives and reflect on its impact. Random intercept cross-lagged panel models illustrated that civic engagement across ages 23–32 reduced loneliness concurrently and longitudinally. No cross-lagged associations were found for depression or optimism. Four themes illuminated the role of civic engagement in buffering against loneliness during emerging adulthood and into midlife: community unites people through a shared vision, fosters meaningful and long-lasting connections, solidifies the importance of leaving a legacy for future generations, and contributes to personal growth via insight into others’ lives, which illuminated an awareness of one’s own social advantages and privilege. These results illustrate that the pathway between increased civic engagement and reduced loneliness may be due, in part, to intrinsic and collective motives that tie together personal growth, identity, and generativity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
The power of prompts: Encouraging children to think about fairness promotes the costly rejection of unfairness.
Children in the United States have an early-emerging understanding that resources should be divided fairly among agents, yet their behavior does not begin to reflect this understanding until later in development. Why does this gap between knowledge and behavior exist, and how can we close it? Here, we tested the role of explicit prompts in closing the gap, asking whether prompting 4- to 9-year-olds to make fair decisions would promote the costly rejection of unfairness in the Inequity Game. Children were presented with either advantageous (more for actor, less for recipient) or disadvantageous (less for actor, more for recipient) allocations and assigned to one of three experimental conditions: Fairness Prompt, Autonomous Prompt, or Baseline. Prompt condition had a strong effect on advantageous but not disadvantageous inequity aversion. Indeed, a simple fairness prompt was enough to reveal advantageous inequity aversion at 5 years of age, roughly 2 years before it was seen in children in the Autonomous Prompt or Baseline conditions. This study points to the promise of simple prompts as a powerful means of encouraging costly fair behavior in childhood. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
At what age can children initiate and execute a mutually beneficial exchange?
Using a novel exchange paradigm, we demonstrate that Australian preschool children from middle to high socioeconomic backgrounds may be capable of executing a mutually beneficial exchange. In Study 1, 3- to 5-year-old children completed a tower building task, in which they were given an opportunity to make trading choices via preset options that could allow both them and a puppet to succeed. A majority of children across age groups selected the efficient trade option over other alternatives. In Study 2, we modified the task to have less structure. With no preset options, 5-year-old children initiated an efficient exchange to a greater extent than younger children. A different task that relied on distributing desirable versus less desirable rewards (stickers) revealed a complementary pattern. The two studies shed light on the onset and developmental trajectory of a prerequisite skill for negotiation: children’s capacity to initiate and execute a mutually beneficial deal, varying across different task contexts. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
The reciprocal relationships between moral disengagement and antisocial behavior from ages 16 to 23.
Moral disengagement (MD) has been consistently associated with antisocial behavior (ASB) in prior research. Limited research tested the directionality of the bivariate relationship, and most studies focused only on the direction of MD predicting ASB, even though ASB could also influence MD based on the literature on attribution and behavioral influence on attitude. Moreover, the few studies testing reciprocal associations rarely controlled for stable individual differences and did not explicitly examine the age effect to allow for a clear developmental inference. We analyzed age-based self-report antisocial behavior and moral disengagement data across ages 16–23 from 1,349 juvenile offenders (86.43% male; 20.31% White, 41.29% Black, 33.65% Hispanic) in the Pathways to Desistance Project using a random intercept cross-lagged panel model. Controlling for stable individual differences in MD and ASB and their associations along with the autoregressive effects, there was a reciprocal relationship between MD and ASB from ages 16 to 18. However, from ages 19 to 21, only ASB significantly predicted MD in the following year. There was no significant cross-lagged effect from ages 21 to 23. Our findings highlight the dynamic relationship between MD and ASB from ages 16 to 23. Youth between 16 and 18 years old may be more pliable to change with treatment/intervention due to the two-way traffic of cognition and behavior, but we also caution against treatment efforts with a heavy focus on proactive criminal thinking involving moral disengagement to reduce offending behavior beyond age 18. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
Able and willing: Infants selectively seek help from competent and benevolent others.
Young children often encounter unsolvable problems with which they require others’ help. To receive adequate assistance, children must be savvy about whom they seek help from: Effective helpers must possess both the ability to help (e.g., competence) and a willingness to do so (e.g., benevolence). Although past work suggests that information about competence and benevolence can inform young children’s help-seeking behavior, it remains unclear how and whether children utilize said factors independently of each other. Furthermore, it is unclear whether they can generalize potential helpers’ competence from one task to another. The current experiments examined whether 22- to 23-month-olds confronted with a broken toy selectively sought help from agents who had previously demonstrated either competence (Experiment 1) or benevolence (Experiment 2). In Experiment 1, infants preferred to seek help from a competent agent who successfully opened a closed box over one who failed to do so. In Experiment 2, infants selectively sought help from a benevolent agent who helped a third party by returning a lost ball, over an agent who stole the ball instead. These patterns of selectivity were not driven by associative valence matching; in Experiment 3, infants showed no preference for an agent who was itself helped versus an agent who was hindered. These results suggest that before their second birthday, infants independently utilize cues to both competence and benevolence to inform their help seeking, using information generalized from novel contexts. We discuss the potential nature of this generalization as well as directions for future work. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
Not all punishment is equal: The effect of punishment severity on children’s social evaluations.
Punishment is a key mechanism to regulate selfish behaviors and maintain cooperation in a society. However, children often show mixed evaluations about third-party punishment. The current work asked how punishment severity might shape children’s social judgments. In two studies, 5- to 10-year-old children heard about a punisher who took different numbers of items from a transgressor and evaluated the punisher’s behavior and moral character. In Study 1 (n = 68), when the transgression was relatively mild (i.e., unfair sharing), children across ages evaluated taking no items from the unfair sharer (“no punishment”) most positively, while evaluating taking three items (“harshest punishment”) most negatively. In Study 2 (n = 68), when the transgression was more serious (i.e., stealing), younger children evaluated taking two items (“equality-establishing punishment”) more positively than older children, while evaluating taking none most negatively. However, children became more likely to evaluate equality-establishing punishment negatively with age. Overall, the current results show that punishment severity is a key factor underlying children’s third-party punishment judgments. The current research extends work on moral development by showing how children conceptualize the severity of punishment. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
The child’s history of early stance toward parental socialization as a context for emerging moral self: A cascade from infancy to toddlerhood to preschool age.
As interest in early morality has grown, researchers have increasingly focused on young children’s moral self, but recent studies have targeted mostly its structure and associations with behavior rather than its developmental origins. Addressing this gap, we followed children, mothers, and fathers in U.S. Midwest from late infancy (16 months old, N = 194, 93 girls, 101 boys), to toddlerhood (3 years old, N = 175, 86 girls, 89 boys), to preschool age (4.5 years old, N = 177, 86 girls, 91 boys). We proposed that moral self at preschool age originates in the second and third years, when the onset of parental control engenders in the child both receptive and adversarial stance toward the parent. In infancy and in toddlerhood, we collected behavioral indications of both stances—positive affect and responsiveness (in toddlerhood, also positive representation of the parent); and defiance and violations of parental prohibition. At preschool age, we measured child moral self in a puppet interview (Kochanska, 2002). For both mother–child and father–child relationships, structural equation modeling supported direct paths from receptive and adversarial stance at age 3 years to higher and lower moral self, respectively, and the expected indirect effects of the child’s receptive stance in infancy on moral self, mediated by the receptive or adversarial stance in toddlerhood. The path from toddler-age adversarial stance to lower moral self was present only in father–son relationships. This study highlights the long-term pivotal significance of the child’s early stance toward the parent for the formation of moral self. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
A bidirectional association between language development and prosocial behavior in childhood: Evidence from a longitudinal birth cohort in the United Kingdom.
This study investigated a developmental cascade between prosocial and linguistic abilities in a large sample (N = 11,051) from the general youth population in the United Kingdom (50% female, 46% living in disadvantaged neighborhoods, 13% non-White). Cross-lagged panel models showed that verbal ability at age 3 predicted prosociality at age 7, which in turn predicted verbal ability at age 11. Latent growth models also showed that gains in prosociality between 3 and 5 years were associated with increased verbal ability between 5 and 11 years and vice versa. Theory of mind and social competence at age 5 mediated the association between early childhood prosociality and late childhood verbal ability. These results remained robust even after controlling for socioeconomic factors, maternal mental health, parenting microclimate in the home environment, and individual characteristics (sex, ethnicity, and special educational needs). The findings suggest that language skills could be boosted through mentalizing activities and prosocial behaviors. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
Trajectories of childhood bullying behaviors and conduct problems: Associations with cognitive functioning in a nationally representative cohort study.
Bullying behaviors and conduct problems are two forms of antisocial behavior that frequently co-occur in childhood. However, it remains unclear whether their developmental trajectories are distinct and the extent to which different aspects of cognitive functioning account for their development. We aimed to disentangle the developmental trajectories of bullying behaviors and conduct problems, test their interrelations across childhood, and assess associations with children’s early cognitive functioning (executive functions, intelligent quotient [IQ], and theory of mind). Participants included 2,232 children from the Environmental Risk (E-Risk) Longitudinal Twin Study. We performed dual group-based trajectory modeling on combined parent and teacher reports of children’s bullying behaviors and conduct problems at 5, 7, 10, and 12 years. We assessed associations with age 5 cognitive functioning using regression analyses. We identified five developmental trajectories for bullying behaviors and four for conduct problems. The developmental course of both behaviors was interrelated most strongly among those with high levels. A subgroup of children was likely to transition from conduct problems to bullying behaviors as they got older. Lower IQ was associated with both antisocial behavior trajectories, whereas lower theory of mind was only associated with conduct problems trajectories. The developmental course of bullying behaviors and conduct problems is distinct but linked across childhood. Interventions targeting bullying behaviors or conduct problems could benefit from more integration and should take into account children’s cognitive functioning. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
How peer relationships influence adolescents’ reasoning about theft-based moral transgressions.
Two studies (Ntotal = 1,153) investigated how adolescents reason about whether to report a transgression committed by a close friend versus distant classmate. In Study 1, sixth–ninth graders (Mage = 12.36 years, SDage = 1.14 years; 55% girls, 44% boys; 2% Asian, 63% Black, 13% Latino, 7% multiracial, 7% White; low-income urban schools) were less willing to report close friends than distant classmates, for both high- and low-severity thefts. In Study 2, seventh–eighth graders (Mage = 12.87 years, SDage = 0.07 years; 48% girls, 45% boys; 2% Asian, 2% Black, 3% Latino, 85% White, 2% multiracial; 29% free/reduced lunch) said they both actually would and morally should report close others less than distant others, but relationship affected “would” judgments more than “should” ones. In their explanations, participants most often appealed to practical outcomes, morality, and relationship to the transgressor—but frequency of these varied based on relationship to the transgressor and judgment type. These studies provide evidence that relational closeness influences both how adolescents reason about peers’ transgressions and what they think is morally right to do—and that their reasoning involves both practical and moral considerations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
The role of changes in peer victimization from elementary to high school and autonomic reactivity on adolescent reactive aggression.
The goals of the present study were to investigate links between changes in peer victimization from elementary to high school and adolescent reactive aggression (Goal 1), whether heightened autonomic nervous system (ANS) reactivity to social and nonsocial stress increases risk for adolescent reactive aggression (Goal 2), and whether increased ANS reactivity strengthens the association between changes in victimization and adolescent reactive aggression (Goal 3). Participants included 145 adolescents (Mage = 16; 54% female; 76% European American, 13% African American, 11% Latino American, 7% Asian American, 5% of mixed race or ethnicity; 60% with family incomes of $100,000 or greater). We collected self-report data in elementary (Time 1 [T1]); (Time 2 [T2]); middle (Time 3 [T3]); and high school (Time 4 [T4]) to assess victimization. At T4, we measured self-reported reactive and proactive aggression, and ANS reactivity (preejection period [PEP], respiratory sinus arrhythmia [RSA]) to peer rejection and nonsocial frustration. More positive victimization slope over time (meaning both less decreasing slopes and increasing slopes) predicted greater adolescent reactive, but not proactive aggression (Goal 1). Greater RSA augmentation to peer rejection and more PEP reactivity to nonsocial frustration predicted more reactive, but not proactive aggression (Goal 2). The link between victimization slope and reactive aggression emerged only for adolescents exhibiting RSA augmentation to peer rejection (marginal; Goal 3). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
Joint developmental trajectories of anxious solitude and peer adversities from early childhood through adolescence: Characteristics and associations with indices of internalizing problems.
This study’s aims were to identify distinct classes of youth exhibiting differing joint trajectories of anxious solitude (AS) and peer adversities from early childhood to adolescence and to examine relations between trajectory classes and the development of internalizing problems. A sample of 383 children (193 girls) was followed from kindergarten (Mage = 5.56 years) through Grade 12 (Mage = 17.89). Measures of AS, peer group rejection and victimization, loneliness, self-esteem, and depression were repeatedly administered across this epoch. Results revealed multiple joint-trajectory classes characterized by varying combinations of AS and peer adversity, and children in these classes differed in the development of internalizing problems over time. Consistent with diathesis—stress hypotheses, two types of peer adversities (stressors), peer group rejection and peer victimization, moderated the relations between children’s propensity to engage in AS (diathesis) and the development of specific internalizing problems, including loneliness, depression, and low self-esteem. These findings suggest that socially vulnerable children (i.e., those high in AS) are particularly prone to developing internalizing problems in the face of peer adversity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)

Developmental Psychology - Vol 61, Iss 2