At around age 5, children become gradually capable of strategically using prosocial acts to achieve ulterior goals such as to improve their reputation, to be chosen as social partners, to elicit reciprocity, & to navigate interpersonal obligations

The development of prosocial behavior – from sympathy to strategy. Sebastian Grueneisen, Felix Warneken. Current Opinion in Psychology, August 12 2021. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2021.08.005

Abstract: Children act prosocially already in their first years of life. Research has shown that this early prosociality is mostly motivated by sympathy for others, but that, over the course of development, children’s prosocial behaviors become more varied, more selective, and more motivationally and cognitively complex. Here, we review recent evidence showing that, starting at around age 5, children become gradually capable of strategically using prosocial acts as instrumental means to achieve ulterior goals such as to improve their reputation, to be chosen as social partners, to elicit reciprocity, and to navigate interpersonal obligations. Children’s sympathy-based prosociality is thus being extended and reshaped into a behavioral repertoire that enables individuals to pursue and balance altruistic, mutualistic, and selfish motives.

Keywords: Prosocial behaviorchildrencooperationstrategicaltruism