Effects of Mental Representations of Children on Prosocial Motivation, 2017-2021

Maio, Gregory R. and Haddock, Geoffrey and Wolf, Lukas and Foad, Colin and Iosifian, Marina and Costin, Vlad and Thorne, Sapphira and Taylor, Samuel and Karremans, Johan and Webb, Elspeth (2022). Effects of Mental Representations of Children on Prosocial Motivation, 2017-2021. [Data Collection]. Colchester, Essex: UK Data Service. 10.5255/UKDA-SN-855385

Children have the potential to elicit concern about the plight of others and the world in which we live. This potential appears in diverse ways. After the news media covering the Syrian migrant crisis showed images of a dead boy, Aylan Kurdi, washed up on a beach, condemnation of the migrant crisis escalated (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34133210). Several months later, the birth of a baby daughter to Priscilla Chan and her partner, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, led them to donate £30bn toward charitable causes, explicitly attempting to make the world a better place for her to grow up (Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg to give away 99% of shares.). These incidents fit many organisations' assumptions that they can enhance interest and support for poverty and environmental concerns by putting children front and centre in their campaigns (e.g., ActOnCO2's https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDthR9RH0gw). Although this anecdotal evidence is provocative, research has not directly examined the role of children in adult prosocial motivation. To be clear, the issue is not whether children elicit more benevolence toward them, the issue is whether children elicit moral motivations to be more considerate of others in general. The proposed research tests whether children causes an increase in adults' prosocial motivation. We expect that the salience of children inspires adults to shift into a motivational focus that enables them to transcend their own needs and to consider the welfare of others. This hypothesis received provocative support in two pilot experiments, wherein the task of imagining and describing a child caused participants to place more importance on pro-social values (e.g., helpfulness, forgiving). However, before being confident in the conclusion that the salience of children increases prosocial motivation, it is important to complete experiments addressing four relevant issues. First, we need to test whether the salience of children increases prosocial motivation in adults across experimental paradigms featuring children of different ages, different measures of prosocial motivation, and different means of making them salient (e.g., music versus narratives). Second, we need to test whether child salience is more likely to elicit pro-social motivation among individuals who are more positive toward children than among individuals who are more negative toward them. Third, we need to discover whether the effects of child salience on pro-social motivation are due to temporary changes in thinking or more thoughtful, long-term changes in prosocial motivation. Fourth, we need to discover whether child salience can elicit greater persuasion from messages advocating socially responsible behaviour, such as environmentally sustainable actions. These issues will be examined across six experiments, all of which will be conducted with participants from the community, including parents and non-parents. The first two experiments will focus on the first two issues described above - issues that focus on when thoughts about children increase prosocial motivation. The next two experiments will focus on the third question described above, examining how thoughts about children influence prosocial motivation. The final two experiments will begin to address the final question above, helping to assess implications for behaviour change. Together, the experiments will help to address a glaring lack of knowledge about the role of children in adult social cognition and behaviour, making an important scientific contribution with eventual societal implications.

Data description (abstract)

This research project examines adult mental representations of children and their implications for prosocial motivation in adults. The original proposal contained six experiments testing when and how the salience of children elicits prosocial motivation in adults. As the project evolved, and later as the Covid-19 pandemic emerged, we included design alterations to better address some of the key research questions, creating a greater number of studies that could programmatically replicate key findings and address follow-up questions that the findings raised. By its completion, our project included three broad collections of studies. The largest comprising 19 studies examined effects of child salience on prosocial motivation, the mechanisms underpinning this effect, and generalizability across outcomes and contexts. Following the original proposal, 10 of these studies were experiments that used different means to make children salient (e.g., descriptions, videos) on prosocial motivation. Across these studies, we found support for our hypothesis that the salience of children increases pro-social motivation and behaviour in adults. An additional 4 studies examined the effects of making children salient in appeals to help the environment, 4 examined the effects of child salience on the mental accessibility of prosocial values and attitudes, and one examined the effects of child salience on empathy. A second set of 14 studies developed and refined a set of scales measuring attitudes toward children (including adolescents in the early studies) and examined associations between two novel dimensions of these attitudes (affection and stress) and a range of measures assessing personality dimensions and prosocial and punitive beliefs regarding children. These studies included explorations of the role of attitudes toward children in prejudice, using face perception designs. A third set of 4 studies began to refine and examine our set of scales measuring attitudes toward teenagers and examined associations between three novel dimensions of these attitudes (ambivalence, negativity, positivity) and measures assessing personality dimensions and beliefs regarding adolescents and young people (e.g., compliance with Covid restrictions)

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