Claims

Infant helping is transformed from participatory acts without prosocial intent around the first birthday to acts motivated by prosocial intent around the second birthday

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · review r3 · q2
Currency · newest study 2019 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person · overdue for a recheck since 2024: baselines and conditions change

Subclaims

Reading the evidence codes

q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r the rigour judged within that kind: what each code means.

This claim: no standardized effect is recorded in observations/ for it yet, so no benchmark reading is possible.

q2 i? The first major developmental transformation in helping is from participatory acts without prosocial intent, evident by the first birthday, to acts motivated by prosocial intent, evident by the second birthday. → Dahl A. 2019

Evidence

Dahl A. 2019

Dahl A., Brownell C. A. (2019). The Social Origins of Human Prosociality. Current Directions in Psychological Science. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721419830386

q2 · i? · review · r3

Narrative review synthesis of developmental research on infant helping. The authors propose that infants' earliest acts of helping stem from "a motivation to engage with others rather than a prosocial motive to promote others' welfare," making them precursors rather than prosocial acts.

"The first major developmental transformation in helping is from participatory acts without prosocial intent, evident by the first birthday, to acts motivated by prosocial intent, evident by the second birthday."

Discussion

Page metadata
Field Value
type claim
id helping-transforms-participatory-to-prosocial-motives
title Infant helping is transformed from participatory acts without prosocial intent around the first birthday to acts motivated by prosocial intent around the second birthday
description Infant helping is transformed from participatory acts without prosocial intent around the first birthday to acts motivated by prosocial intent around the second birthday
status review
evidence_strength moderate
newest_evidence 2019
recheck_by 2024
generated by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-17
trust unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content
sources 1 — dahl-a-2019

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