is it better to give or receive?

THE ESSENTIAL

• Children between the ages of 4 and 6 whose parents have more generous personalities have shown a greater willingness to hand over the earned chips to fictitious children in need.
• The generosity of children is supported by the combination of their experiences of socialization from their mother and their physiological regulation.

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Young children who have generous parents turn out to be more generous. American researchers from the University of California are interested in the question: to give or to receive? To study which of the two is more interesting for our health, they compared the behavior of children according to their education. They presented the results of their work in the journal Frontiers in Psychology last November 5.

An example from the mother

Children between the ages of 4 and 6 whose parents have more generous personalities have shown a greater willingness to hand over the earned chips to fictitious children in need. The study involved 74 children and their mothers and was conducted again two years later. “At both ages, children with better physiological regulation and with mothers who expressed greater compassionate love are more likely to donate their income., analyzed Paul Hastings, professor of psychology at the University of California. Compassionate mothers likely develop emotionally close relationships with their children while also providing an early example of pro-social orientation towards the needs of others..”

Researchers recorded children’s heart rates to study their reaction through several experiments. In particular, the researchers explained to the children that they would win tokens for a variety of activities and that they could be exchanged for a prize. The tokens were placed in a box and each child won 20 prize tokens. Before the end of the session, the children were told that they can give all or part of their tokens to other children, for sick children who could not come to play the game or for children in difficulty. Mothers also had to answer questions about how to educate their children.

Being more generous makes you calmer

The results revealed that children’s generosity is supported by the combination of their mother’s experiences of socialization and their physiological regulation which function as “internal and external supports for the ability to act pro-social on each other”The researchers wrote. The results obtained were the same two apart.

The researchers also observed that being more generous seems to benefit children. At ages 4 and 6, heart rate recording showed that children who gave more chips were calmer after activity compared to children who gave little or no chips. “Pro-social behaviors can be inherently effective in appeasing one’s own arousal, said Paul Hastings. Being in a calmer state after sharing might reinforce the generous behavior that produced this good feeling..”

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