Sponsor
Portland State University. Department of Psychology
First Advisor
Cathleen L. Smith
Term of Graduation
Summer 1979
Date of Publication
8-3-1979
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science (M.S.) in Psychology
Department
Psychology
Language
English
Subjects
Child psychology
DOI
10.15760/etd.2877
Physical Description
1 online resource (3, vi, 105 pages)
Abstract
This experiment examined the effects of instructions on the prosocial behavior (i.e., helping, sharing, teaching, and sympathy) of preschool children. Forty-eight individual children (X = 56.7 months) interacted with two adult women on two separate occasions, an initial session measuring baseline levels of prosocial behavior, and a second session several days later. In the second session, children received instructions in helping, sharing, and teaching, and an opportunity to rehearse, or practice, these prosocial behaviors. Children were given either power assertive instructions (i.e., instructions which directly told the child what to do), or inductive instructions (i.e., instructions which focused the child's attention on the needs of others). A control group received no instructions to behave prosocially. At the close of the second session, all children were given an immediate test to assess their level of helping, sharing, and teaching in the absence of instructions. An opportunity to display sympathy or comforting behavior was included to test for generalization of the instructional training to a new behavior. Approximately one week later a third session, where the child interacted with two new adult women who gave no instructions but presented opportunities for the child to help, share, teach, and sympathize, was included to test for internalization and long term generalization.
Rights
In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
Persistent Identifier
https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/17350
Recommended Citation
Blackwell, Jane Marie, "The Effects of Instructions on Prosocial Behavior of Preschool Children" (1979). Dissertations and Theses. Paper 2883.
https://doi.org/10.15760/etd.2877
Comments
If you are the rightful copyright holder of this dissertation or thesis and wish to have it removed from the Open Access Collection, please submit a request to pdxscholar@pdx.edu and include clear identification of the work, preferably with URL.