Abstract
Promoting prosocial behaviour towards those who are dissimilar from oneself is an urgent contemporary issue. Because children spend much time in same-gender relationships, promoting other-gender prosociality could help them develop more inclusive relationships. Our goals were to better understand the development of school-age children's intergroup prosocial behavior and the extent to which elementary school-age children consider their own and the recipient's gender in prosocial behaviour. Participants included 515 3rd, 4th and 5th graders (263, 51.1% boys, Mageinyears = 9.08, SD = 1.00) surveyed in the fall (T1) and spring (T2). We assessed children's prosociality using peer nominations. Children became more prosocial toward same-gender peers over time but prosocial behavior toward other-gender peers remained stable. We found that gender mattered: Children showed an ingroup bias in prosociality favouring members of their own-gender group. Having other-gender friendships positively predicted children's prosocial behaviour towards other-gender peers over time. Children's felt similarity to other-gender peers was not directly, but indirectly, related to more prosocial behaviour toward other-gender peers. Findings shed light on potential pathways to fostering school-age children's intergroup prosocial behaviors.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 520-538 |
Number of pages | 19 |
Journal | British Journal of Developmental Psychology |
Volume | 40 |
Issue number | 4 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Nov 2022 |
Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- cross-group friendships
- gender
- gender similarity
- intergroup contact
- intergroup relations
- prosocial behavior
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Developmental and Educational Psychology
- Developmental Neuroscience