A researcher rolls a ball with a toddler, engaging in the type of reciprocal play that primes the child to exhibit future altruistic behaviors.
By recreating a classic experiment, Stanford psychologists find that altruistic behavior may be governed more by relationships, even brief ones, than instincts. Ever since the concept of altruism was proposed in the 19th century, psychologists have debated whether or not people are born into the world preprogrammed to be nice to others. Now, a pair of Stanford psychologists has conducted experiments that indicate altruism has environmental triggers, and is not something we are simply born with. In 2006, a study involving toddlers found that the 18-month-olds were willing to provide a helping hand to the experimenters without being prompted. This expression of altruistic behavior in such young children aligned with what many scientists believed to be an expression of innate altruism, and the findings have served as the basis for dozens of studies since. Rodolfo Cortes Barragan , a psychology graduate student at Stanford, and Carol Dweck , the Lewis and Virginia Eaton Professor of Psychology, suspected there might be more to the story. As with most experiments involving toddlers, the researchers behind the 2006 study engaged in a few minutes of play with the children, in order to make them comfortable with new people in a new setting. But this interaction, however brief, might have primed the toddler subjects toward altruistic behavior, and affected the outcome of the experiment. "Kids are always on the lookout for social cues, and this is a very prominent one," said Barragan, the lead author on the research paper. "Does the person's play indicate that they'll care for me?
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