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Giving Leads to Happiness in Young Children
Open accessAbstract
Evolutionary models of cooperation require proximate mechanisms that sustain prosociality despite inherent costs to individuals. The "warm glow" that often follows prosocial acts could provide one such mechanism; if so, these emotional benefits may be observable very early in development. Consistent with this hypothesis, the present study finds that before the age of two, toddlers exhibit greater happiness when giving treats to others than receiving treats themselves. Further, children are happier after engaging in costly giving--forfeiting their own resources--than when giving the same treat at no cost. By documenting the emotionally rewarding properties of costly prosocial behavior among toddlers, this research provides initial support for the claim that experiencing positive emotions when giving to others is a proximate mechanism for human cooperation.
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“Likewise, toddlers and preschoolers display positive emotions when acting prosocially (Aknin, Hamlin, & Dunn, 2012; Ross, 2017).”
From Emotion understanding and the moral self-concept as motivators of prosocial behavior in middle childhood (2020) · cites this paper as Aknin et al., 2012
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Metadata
- Authors
- Aknin, L. B., Hamlin, J. K., & Dunn, E. W.
- Affiliations
- University of British Columbia (CA)
- Corresponding author
- Aknin, Lara B.
- Venue
- PLoS ONE
- Publisher
- Public Library of Science (PLoS)
- Published
- 2012-06-14
- Volume
- 7
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- e39211
- ISSN
- 1932-6203 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC3375233
- OpenAlex
- W2081113617
- Cited by
- 304
- References
- 36
- Citations by year
- 2026: 14 · 2025: 14 · 2024: 16 · 2023: 22 · 2022: 43 · 2021: 28 · 2020: 30 · 2019: 23 · 2018: 14 · 2017: 32 · 2016: 19 · 2015: 23 · 2014: 18 · 2013: 5 · 2012: 3
- FWCI
- 31.56
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- PLoS ONE (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies
- Keywords
- warm glow giving, prosocial behavior, happiness, toddlers, cooperation, early childhood development
- MeSH terms
- Altruism, Analysis of Variance, Child, Preschool, Female, Happiness, Humans, Male
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