Some Personality and Motivational Correlates of Children's Prosocial Behavior

The prosocial behavior of 76 male and female fourth-graders was investigated by observing their sharing, caring, and helping actions on the playground and by obtaining sociometric measures (peer nomination) of a variety of prosocial actions. Interrelations among all the prosocial acts were examined. Personal characteristics such as assertiveness, empathy, self-concept, value orientation, and moral-motivational reasoning based on role taking were also assessed. The number and pattern of significant correlations obtained among the observed prosocial behaviors, among the peer nominations, and between these two sets of scores indicated that, for girls, prosocial responding was moderately coherent, but that, for boys, caring, sharing, and helping were relatively independent domains. The hypotheses about the associations between prosocial behavior and personal characteristics were at least moderately supported. Sex differences in these relationships suggest that females' predominant prosocial responses reflect expressiveness and caring, whereas males' most salient prosocial responses are more active and instrumental.