Family Background and Subsequent Helping Behavior

描述（由申请人提供）：本研究的目的是评估儿童的家庭背景与他们成年后的助人行为之间的关系。三个结果将被用来衡量年轻人的帮助行为：慈善捐赠，志愿服务，以及他们在养育自己的孩子时对帮助行为的重视程度。要审查的家庭背景的具体方面是家庭收入和结构（没有亲生父母和监护父母再婚）。概念框架是基于亲社会道德推理的发展阶段（例如，Eisenberg 1982）以及家庭背景可能影响这种发展的机制。因此，对这些影响的估计将是具体阶段的。年轻人的慈善捐赠和志愿服务模型将使用半参数技术进行估计，该技术针对对结果的不可观察影响的广泛假设提供可靠的结果（例如，见Chay和Honore 1998）。年轻人强调帮助养育自己的孩子的模型将使用有序probit和Iogit以及半参数技术进行估计。用于估计模型的数据将取自1968-2001年收入动态小组研究（PSID）及其两个组成部分：1997年儿童发展补充（CDS）和2001年慈善小组研究中心（COPPS）。由于几个原因，这项研究的结果将是重要的。首先，虽然有实验室证据支持亲社会发展的各种阶段理论，但没有证据表明儿童生活中的重大事件是否会对他们成年后的政策相关帮助行为产生后续影响。同样，我们也不知道这些事件是否会对下一代的教育产生连锁反应。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The objective of the proposed research is to estimate the relationship between children's family background and their subsequent helping behavior as young adults. Three outcomes will be used as measures of young adults' helping behavior: charitable giving, volunteering, and the emphasis they place on helping behavior in parenting their own children. The specific aspects of family background to be examined are family income and structure (absence of a biological parent and remarriage of a custodial parent). The conceptual framework is based on developmental stages of prosocial moral reasoning (e.g., Eisenberg 1982) and the mechanisms by which family background can be expected to affect that development. Hence, the estimation of these effects will be stage-specific. Models of young adults' charitable giving and volunteering will be estimated using semi-parametric techniques which provide robust results against a wide range of assumptions about unobservable influences on the outcomes (see, e.g., Chay and Honore 1998). Models of young adults' emphasis on helping in the parenting of their own children will be estimated using ordered probit and Iogit as well as semi-parametric techniques. The data used to estimate the models will be drawn from the 1968-2001 waves of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) and two of its components: the 1997 Child Development Supplement (CDS) and the 2001 Center on Philanthropy Panel Study (COPPS). The results from this research will be important for several reasons. First, although there is laboratory evidence supporting various stage theories of prosocial development, there is no evidence concerning whether significant events during the lives of children have subsequent effects on their policy-relevant helping behavior as adults. Likewise, it is not known whether such events have ripple effects on the parenting of the next generation. Second, the literature that has examined family background effects on children's behavior has predominately focused on "negative" behavior (Moore, Evans, Brooks-Gunn and Roth 1999). Positive behaviors, such as helping, have been only lightly researched. Finally, evidence indicating which stages of childhood are important for these domains of helping behaviors would suggest ages at which interventions promoting altruism should be targeted.