Prosocial development across childhood: Towards a comprehensive mechanistic framework

人类是亲社会的物种，愿意与他人分享、帮助和安慰他人。科学家们一直试图了解这种能力是如何在儿童时期发展起来的，但由于几个原因，进展受到了阻碍：1)未能区分功能不同的亲社会行为形式；2)使用不同的方法；3)零敲碎打的方法和对有限年龄段的狭隘关注。我们的项目将通过整合几个项目来解决这个问题，这些项目集中在一个非常大的年龄范围内，并对所有儿童使用相同的方法，以及对子群体使用特定的方法来调查亲社会行为在童年过程中是如何变化的。我们的第一个联合项目将重点关注3-7岁儿童两种典型亲社会行为的共同和独特机制，以及发展的哪些方面支持亲社会行为的出现和变化。使用加速纵向设计，我们能够研究亲社会行为的发展轨迹。重要的是，该项目将在所有三个地点进行，这将使我们能够一起分析数据，并测试观察到的效果的可重复性。我们的第二个项目解决了不同情况下要求儿童亲社会的挑战问题。孩子们缺乏帮助可能是因为他们不理解问题，也可能是因为做出回应很困难或令人痛苦。通过使用不同复杂程度的亲社会措施，包括假设的场景，该项目将能够说明亲社会行为发展变化的本质。我们的第三个项目侧重于社会化在塑造亲社会行为中的关键作用，以及孩子和父母之间的互动如何促进这一点。本项目将重点关注亲子关系质量的作用，以及父母在互动中使用的话语。这个项目将能够研究随着时间的推移，亲子互动的相互影响，从而解决发展动态的关键问题。我们的第四个项目侧重于儿童如何处理亲社会的成本（即放弃时间或其他资源）。该项目将使用脑成像和计算模型来研究儿童关心他人程度的潜在神经过程，以及关心他人的程度如何影响儿童自我调节的重要性。该项目将揭示亲社会发展的神经机制。采用高性能和优化的研究设计，在前所未有的年龄范围和规模的样本中采用亲社会行为和潜在机制的综合任务组，并将其与专门的子项目联系起来，研究儿童发展过程中不同阶段的不同机制，该合作项目为我们对亲社会发展的理解提供了一个阶梯式的改变。

Humans are a prosocial species, willing to share with, help and comfort others. Scientists have been trying to understand how this ability develops during childhood, yet progress has been marred for several reasons: 1) a failure to differentiate between functionally distinct forms of prosocial behaviour; 2) the use of different methods; 3) a piecemeal approach and narrow focus on limited age bands. Our project will remedy this through an integration of several projects focussing on an uncommonly large age range, and using a combination of both identical methods for all children as well as specific methods for subgroups to investigate how prosocial behaviours change over the course of childhood. Our first joint project will focus on common and distinct mechanisms for two prototypical prosocial behaviours across 3-7 years of age and which aspects of development support the emergence and change of prosocial action. Using an accelerated longitudinal design, we are able to study developmental trajectories of prosocial behaviour. Importantly, this project will be carried out at all three sites, which will allow us to both analyse data together as well as test for replicability of observed effects. Our second project tackles the question of the challenges posed by different situations requiring children to be prosocial. Children’s lack of helping could be either because they do not understand the problem or because producing the response is difficult or distressing. By using different prosocial measures varying in complexity and including hypothetical scenarios, this project will be able to speak to the nature of developmental change in prosocial behaviour.Our third project focusses on the crucial role of socialisation in shaping prosocial behaviour and how this is promoted by interactions between children and parents. This project will focus on the roles of quality of parent-child relationships, and the discourse used by the parents in their interactions. This project will be able to look at reciprocal influences of child-parent interactions over time and thus tackle the critical question of developmental dynamics.Our fourth project focusses on how children process the cost of being prosocial (i.e. giving up time or other resources). This project will use brain imaging and computational modelling to look at the underlying neural process of how much children care about others, and how the extent of caring about others might influence the importance of self-regulation in children. This project will shed light on the neural mechanisms of prosocial development. Using highly powered and optimal study designs adopting a comprehensive task battery of prosocial behaviour and underlying mechanism in a sample unprecedented in age range and size and linking this to dedicated subprojects examining distinct mechanisms at various points during child development, this collaborative project provides a step-change in our understanding of prosocial development.