New research published in developmental science This suggests that the act of giving to others, even at a very young age, is inherently rewarding for humans. Scientists have found that young children express more happiness when they share a snack with someone else than when they receive a treat themselves. This provides evidence that human cooperation is driven by natural emotional rewards from prosocial behavior, which refers to actions aimed at benefiting others.
Across many different cultures, people routinely share their resources with friends and strangers. These acts of generosity often come at a personal cost, from providing food to neighbors to donating organs. Scientists wanted to understand what drives this kind of deep cooperation.
“Humans are markedly (pro)social, and some are willing to share resources at considerable personal cost (as seen in surrogacy and organ donation). We are therefore very interested in exploring the developmental origins and motivational forces behind these generous sharing behaviors,” said study author Enda Tan, assistant professor at the University of Victoria.
Previous research suggests that helping others creates a positive feedback loop of well-being, a concept that psychologists often refer to as a “warm glow.” This positive emotional response facilitates future acts of generosity. However, past research on young children has often relied on very small sample sizes.
Previous research groups were small, making it difficult to accurately estimate how much happiness giving actually brings. Furthermore, previous experiments have left open alternative explanations for children’s positive reactions. Toddlers may be laughing not because they had fun sharing, but because they simply liked following the instructions of a kind adult.
Young children are very attentive to social rules and generally want to please the adults around them. The researchers designed the experiment to directly test these possibilities. They aimed to see if young children really enjoyed the act of giving, or just doing what they were told.
The team recruited 134 healthy infants, ranging in age from just 16.57 months to 23.77 months. During the experiment, the children sat on the laps of their caregivers across the scientist’s table. To prevent caregivers from influencing the infants, the adults wore headphones with music playing and kept their eyes closed.
Next, the experimenters introduced the children to a stuffed monkey. They explained that the monkeys liked to eat snacks such as graham crackers and goldfish crackers. The main part of the experiment involved a series of structured interactions around these snacks.
First, scientists gave eight treats to infants so that the child could experience receiving an attractive reward. Infants then participated in four different scenarios in random order. In the “expensive giving” scenario, the child was asked to give one of his treats to the monkey.
In the “giving without cost” scenario, the scientist prepared a new treat from a hidden bowl and asked the child to feed it to the monkey. This study also includes two additional scenarios that serve as comparisons. In the “watch giving” phase, the scientist gave the monkey a treat while the child just watched.
Finally, in the “feed to yourself” phase, the scientist provided a snack and asked the child to keep it. This last scenario was designed to test whether infants were simply willing to follow an adult’s instructions, even if the behavior was not permissive. The monkey doll responded with the same enthusiasm each time it received a treat.
To measure the children’s emotional responses, the researchers recorded videos of the infants’ faces at each stage. Independent reviewers, who were unaware of the purpose of the study, watched the videos and rated the children’s well-being on a seven-point scale. A score of 1 represented a lack of happiness, and a score of 7 indicated a very happy response, such as laughing.
The scientists also appreciated the monkey doll’s apparent enthusiasm. This helped check emotional contagion, a psychological phenomenon in which people simply “catch” or imitate the emotions of those around them. They wanted to make sure the child wasn’t just reflecting the doll’s joy.
The results of this study show that when young children engage in generous behavior, their mood visibly increases. The children were much happier after giving the monkey a treat than after receiving their own treat. This positive emotional response occurred whether the infants were given their own treats or the treats provided by the scientists.
This data also helps rule out the idea that young children simply enjoyed the process of following instructions. The children were consistently happier when they were asked to give the monkey a treat than when they were asked to give themselves a treat. Giving yourself a treat does not bring as much happiness as receiving a treat at the beginning of the game.
Researchers also found that taking an active role in sharing tends to be more rewarding than watching someone be generous. The infants showed greater happiness when the puppets were directly handed the cheap treats compared to when they simply observed scientists feeding the monkeys. When combining both forms of giving, children were much happier acting generously than just watching.
Finally, the researchers pointed out that the infant’s joy did not simply reflect a happy reaction to the doll. Statistical analysis showed that changes in the doll’s enthusiasm did not predict how happy the children were. This suggests that happiness is a direct result of performing acts of kindness, rather than an emotional contagion.
“This study provides evidence that as soon as sharing behavior emerges, young children experience greater rewards by receiving resources, observing others giving, and giving resources to others than by giving to themselves,” Tan told PsyPost. “This suggests that sharing early in development is inherently beneficial, which may create a positive feedback loop that strengthens future generosity.”
Although these findings provide evidence of early emotional rewards associated with sharing, there are some limitations that should be considered. This study was based on a specific sample of families in a North American city. Future studies could recruit more diverse groups of children from different cultural backgrounds to see if this emotional reward is universal.
The scientists also suggest using biological measurements to assess emotions in future studies. Tools that measure changes in pupil size and skin conductance could track happiness more objectively than coding facial expressions.
The study, “Toddlers are happier when they give to others than themselves,” was authored by Enda Tan, Julia van de Vondervoort, Jenisha Dhaliwal, Lara B. Akunin, and Jane Kiley Hamlin.
