The emergence of subtypes of prosocial behaviour in preschool children’s behaviour

Abstract

Prosocial behaviours are a variety of reactions that emerge during problematic situation of another person and intended to solve the actual situation or decrease the other’s negative mental state. There are several studies on the exploration and the development of these skills but the number of the Hungarian studies is insignificant. Hungarian researches mostly use indirect methods for investigate these behaviours mostly with adults who raise children (parents, teachers). 189 preschool children attended in this study. The aim of the research was to investigate some types of prosocial behaviours (helping, sharing, comforting) with direct methods. During the situations children had to realize the situation as problematic then try to reduce the other’s negative affective state with a prosocial behaviour. Our results show that in these situations children mostly react prosocial. After perceiving the other person’s problematic state children produced helping behaviour in high rate and shared possessed things with the adult who needed. In contrast with these findings in the case of the emotional distress children didn’t react prosocial, they didn’t seek to change the other person’s negative affective state with comforting behaviour. The results have shown that to treat problematic situations in kindergartens can be very difficult for children and are influenced by many factors. All of these results can be a base for further researches and developmental programs.