The Study of Prosocial Emotions in Early Childhood: Unique Opportunities and Insights
Hepach R., Vaish A.
The study of young children’s prosocial emotions, especially as they regulate children’s social interactions toward cooperative ends, is burgeoning. We join Algoe (2020) and Tsang (2020) in their assessment that early ontogeny provides a unique window into the study of prosocial emotions, and that the behavioural methods developed to study prosocial emotions in young children could productively be employed across the lifespan. One particularly intriguing question moving forward is to what degree the role of prosocial emotions within kin relationships is comparable to or different from the functions they fulfil in regulating cooperative relationships with nonkin (peers).