Altruism in young children: Exploring factors that influence helping behaviour

Helping behaviour is fundamental to human interaction but its underlying motivation and origins have caused much debate - is it egoistic or altruistic, biological or acquired? Indeed, it has been proposed that young children might initially be relatively indiscriminate altruists who become more selective with who and how they help as they get older. The findings of this PhD research first highlight the effect of children’s self-awareness on their behaviour and second, show that young children’s selfless helping behaviour indiscriminately extends to a novel type of recipient; a robot. These findings further support the idea of a predisposition for altruism.