Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 4, 51-60 (1989)

The Relationship of Self-Concept to Prosocial Behavior in Children

Kate Cauley Iona Collese

Bonnie Tyler University of Maryland

This paper explores the relationship between a child's self-concept and the prosocial behavior demonstrated by that child. Prosocial behavior included sharing, helping, and cooperative behaviors. The subjects were 52 4- and 5- year-old children, who were observed during free play in their day care centers and were administered the Purdue Self-Concept Scale for Preschool Children. Results indicated a significant correlation between self-concept and cooperative behavior over and above the effects of sex, age, number of siblings, and number of years in school. In addition, cooperative behavior that was self-initiated was more effective than cooperative behavior that was other-initiated. The implications for child rearing and the classroom focus on the dual directional nature of the relationship between self-con- cept and prosocial behavior.

In recent years the study of prosocial behavior has become an active field of research in the areas of developmental and social psychology. Much of this research has been concerned with situational and social influences on pro- social behavior. While personality factors had been given some considera- tion, for many years there had been general agreement that these factors contributed only minimally to the development of prosocial behavior. Ac- cording to Clark, "Although the role of personality has not been ignored, the prevailing consensus has been that either an altruistic personality does not exist or the tremendous inconsistency in the empirical data precludes a serious consideration of personality determinants of prosocial behavior" (1986, p. 81).

However, in a recent book resulting from an international conference on prosocial behavior (Staub, Bar-Tal, Karylowki, & Reykowski, 1984), con- siderable importance is assigned to the role of personal characteristics in

Correspondence and requests for reprints should be sent to Kate Cauley, Counseling Center, Iona College, New Rochelle, NY 10801.

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prosocial behavior. In fact, in this compilation of the writings of 24 scholars, 17 of them have written about the influence of personality varia- bles on prosocial behavior.

We feel that there are some aspects of personality that cannot be over- looked as potential influences on the development of prosocial behavior in children. Our interest was in studying the relationship between prosocial behavior and one personality factor--self-concept. In the study reported here, it was predicted that the child with a positive self-concept would be more likely to demonstrate helping, sharing, and cooperating behaviors than the child with a less positive self-concept.

The theoretical basis for this prediction lies in social learning theory, which posits that individuals learn, among other things, expectations for how well they will perform, how they will behave, and how they will be viewed by others. Positive expectations involve a sense of competence and feelings of self-assurance, while negative expectations involve a sense of in- adequacy and feelings of self-doubt. It is felt that the child whose experiences have resulted in positive expectations will develop a more positive self- concept than the child whose experiences have produced negative expecta- tions. As a result of a positive self-concept, a child's expectations lead to less need to engage in competitive interactions with other children, less threat from others' accomplishments, and less egotistical focusing. This child is more capable of empathizing with others and is more likely to show concern about other children's needs than the child with the less positive self-con- cept. The end result is more sharing, helping, and cooperating behavior. In turn, this greater frequency of prosocial behavior facilitates social interac- tion that is mutually satisfying and provides opportunities for more positive reinforcement from both adults and peers. Peer interaction, in particular, encourages prosocial behavior because positive responses to children's pro- social behavior strongly reinforce that behavior.

Unfortunately, there is little research in which the relationship between self-concept and prosocial behavior has been investigated. In one of the few studies reported, Hampson (1979) observed that eighth-grade children with positive self-concepts were more helpful than those with poorer self-con- cepts. Reykowski and Jarymowicz (1976) found that low self-esteem in chil- dren led to self-concern, which tended to lessen attention to others and to decrease prosocial behavior.

Some data have been reported on the relationship between self-concept and prosocial behavior in populations other than children. For example, a positive correlation between self-esteem and altruistic behavior has been found for preadolescents (Mussen, Rutherford, Harris, & Keasy, 1970). Lewis, Bentley, & Sawyer (1980) observed that adults with higher, more positive self-concepts exhibited behaviors such as nurturance, endurance, and affiliation more often than adults with more negative self-concepts, and

Self-Concept and Prosocial Behavior 53

adults with higher self-concepts were shown to be more accepting of their partners' differences (Sharpley, & Kahn, 1980). Trimakas (1974) reported that elderly individuals with higher self-concepts tended to behave more prosocially.

There is some evidence to suggest a relation between low self-concept and nonprosocial behavior. Eron and Heusman (1984) reported a correlation between aggressive behavior and low self-concept. In a related study designed to decrease aggressive behavior in 6-year-olds, improving self-concept was demonstrated to be the most effective technique (Strayer, 1984).

As for other research findings relevant either to self-concept or prosocial behavior, Harper and Huie (1985) found that as age increased, children's social interaction and cooperating behaviors increased. Similarly, Peterson (1983) observed that as feelings of competence increased with age, the fre- quency of prosocial behavior increased. Related to age, number of years in school has been shown to relate positively to frequency of prosocial behavior (Berndt, 1981; Shea, 1981). Abbot (1981) reported that self-con- cept contributed more than other variables investigated to the variance in academic achievement in elementary school children. Finally, there is some evidence to suggest that children from larger families exhibit sharing and cooperating behaviors more frequently than children from smaller families (Floody, 1980).

The present study was designed to investigate the relationship between the self-concepts of 4- and 5-year-old children and the frequency of their prosocial behavior, defined here as sharing, helping, and cooperating. It was predicted that children scoring high on a self-concept measure would demonstrate more prosocial behaviors than those scoring lower. In addition to the frequency of sharing, helping, and cooperating behaviors, the quality of these behaviors was assessed. Quality was determined by evaluating the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of the behavior, as well as the source-- namely, self-initiated or other-initiated. It was predicted that sex and age of child, number of years in day care, and number of siblings would influence the relationship between self-concept and prosocial behavior.

METHOD

Subjects Subjects were 52 children in day care: 13 were in their first year, 39 in their second year. There were 32 boys with a mean age of 62 months, ranging in age from 51 to 73 months; and 20 girls with a mean age of 60 months, ranging in age from 50 to 73 months. Forty-three subjects were Caucasian, 4 Black, 3 Asian, and 2 Hispanic. The average age of the subjects' parents was 31.5 years; the average education level, 15.2 years. Thirty-one subjects lived with both parents, 14 with their mothers, and 5 with their fathers. Seventeen sub-

54 Cauley and Tyler

jects had no siblings, 28 had one sibling, and 9 had two or more. Annual in- come of the subjects' families ranged from $26,000 to $50,000.

The two day care centers in which the subjects were enrolled were selected on the basis of their similarities in structure and curriculum, as well as for their similarities in socioeconomic background of the children attending.

Measures The Purdue Self-Concept Scale for Preschool Children was used for an in- dividual assessment of self-concept. This test was designed to measure a child's sense of his or her social acceptability and sense of competence. The test has 40 picture-pair items, each consisting of two pictures, one depicting a child functioning successfully on a task or in relating to others, the other picture depicting a child functioning unsuccessfully. Each pair of pictures is shown to the subject, and a descriptive sentence is read for each picture. For example, "This child can run fast, and this child cannot run fas t . " The sub- ject is asked, "Which child is more like you?" The subject receives one point when identifying with the successful child and zero when identifying with the unsuccessful child. The maximum score is 40.

The measure of prosocial behavior consisted of observations of subjects during free play in two day care centers. Trained observers recorded the fre- quency of helping, sharing, and cooperating behaviors and rated them on two quality dimensions: (a) effectiveness-ineffectiveness and (b) self-initiated- other-initiated.

Teacher evaluations provided a second assessment of each subject 's self- concept and prosocial behavior. The scale developed to assess the teacher 's perception of frequency of prosocial behavior included three questions: (a) Is _ _ helpful toward other children and willing to respond to another child who seems to need help? (b) Is willing to share things with other children that are his or hers or that he or she is playing with? (c) Is _ _ willing to cooperate with other children playing cooperative games, working on projects, involved in group activities?

A second scale, developed to assess the teacher's perception of a subject 's self-concept, included the following questions: (a) Does _ _ seem to en- joy herself or himself when interacting with other children? (b) Does seem to be comfortable with her or his physical appearance and abilities? (c) Does _ _ seem to consider herself or himself to be a smart child? Sub- jects were rated on both scales as follows: very often, frequently, sometimes, infrequently, hardly ever. In scoring, 5 points were given for "very of ten" to 1 point for "hardly ever ," with a maximum of 15 points on each scale.

Procedure Initially a letter was sent to the parents of all 4- and 5-year-old children in the two day care centers, describing the purpose of the study and outlining the kinds of experiences a child would have if he or she participated in the

Self-Concept and Prosocial Behavior 55

study. All of the parents contacted agreed to let their children take part in the study, and all children participated voluntarily.

A questionnaire was given in person to a parent of each subject to collect demographic data. This questionnaire provided the following information: sex and age of child, number of years in day care, number of siblings, race, approximate family income, age and educational level of parents, and number and sex of parent(s) in the home.

Three female undergraduate students were trained to record observations of children's behaviors, initially with no specific focus. Each recorder wore a Walkman tape recorder with headphones, which directed her to "observe for 15 seconds" and "record for 10 seconds." The observers were then trained to use a coding procedure developed for recording only the specific prosocial behaviors delineated for this study--sharing (S), helping (H), and cooperating (C). The observers also rated the quality of each behavior recorded-- that is, effective (E) or ineffective (I), and self-initiated (S) or other-initiated (O). For example, if a subject offerred an object to another child on his or her own initiative and the child received the object, the behavior was recorded as SES (sharing, effective, and self-initiated). Simi- larly, if the subject offered the object to a child at the teacher's direction and the child did not accept the object, the behavior was recorded as SIO (sharing, ineffective, and other-initiated).

When more than one prosocial behavior was observed during a 15-second observation unit, two separate codings were recorded. Thus within 15 sec- onds a subject might cooperate effectively at another child's initiation and initiate helping behavior that was ineffective (CEO-HIS). A single dash in- dicated that no prosocial behavior was observed during that 15-second unit of time. Each subject was observed for 80 15-second observation units for a total of 20 minutes. Overall, 4,160 units of behavior were observed in 7 separate observation periods.

Before the data for this study were collected, reliability was established by the three recorders observing 15 children for 120 units of 15-second observation periods followed by 10-second recording periods. An interrater reliability of .80 was achieved.

The Purdue Self-Concept Scale for Preschool Children was administered to each subject individually by one of the authors. All subjects were able to complete the 40 pairs of pictures in one session.

RESULTS

A forced-order multiple regression analysis was computed to examine the relationship between self-concept and prosocial behavior, controlling for the effects of sex, age, family size, and number of years in day care. Variance in prosocial behavior due to these factors was not significant, as they ac- counted for only 10070 of the variance. However, the variance in prosocial

56 Cauley and Tyler

Table 1. Frequency of Prosocial Behaviors and Correlations Between Subjects' Sharing, Helping, and Cooperating Behavior Scores and Self-Concept Scores (N = 52)

Variables Range Frequency Mean S D r p

Sharing with 0-22 283 5.44 3.82 - .27 .29 Self-concept 23-40 32.28 4.77

Helping with 0-20 334 6.73 4.29 - .00 .47 Self-concept 23-40 32.28 4.77

Cooperating with 34-70 2,827 54.36 7.89 .47 .01 Self-concept 23--40 32.28 4.77

Table 2. Proportion of Effective and Self-Initiated Prosocial Behavior Compared With Percentage of Effective and Other-Initiated Prosocial Behavior

Percent of Effective Percent of Effective Variable Frequency Self-Initiated Behaviors Other-Initiated Behaviors

Effective and self-initiated 2,751 NA NA prosocial behavior (ES)

Self-initiated 2,917 94 NA prosocial behavior (S)

Effective and other-initiated 216 NA NA prosocial behavior (EO)

Other-initiated 363 NA 59 prosocial behavior (O)

behavior due to self-concept controlling for sex, age, family size, and number of years in school was significant (F= 6.05 (46,5), p < .01).

From an analysis of the relationship between self-concept and each of the three major categories of prosocial behavior--helping, sharing, and coop- erating-the only significant relationship was between self-concept and cooperating behavior (r= .47, p < .01) (Table 1).

Further analyses to examine the relationship between self-concept and the four quality characteristics of prosocial behavior--effective or ineffec- tive and self-initiated or other-initiated--demonstrated no significant rela- tionships.

To test whether children would demonstrate a greater frequency of effec- tive prosocial behavior that was self-initiated, four variables were created: (1) effective, self-initiated prosocial behavior (ES); (2) effective, other-ini- tiated prosocial behavior (EO); (3) self-initiated prosocial behavior (S); and (4) other-initiated prosocial behavior (O). A calculation of the ratio ES/S: EO/O produced a significant difference between the two ratios, indicating that self-initiated prosocial behavior was effective more often than other- initiated prosocial behavior (Table 2).

Self-Concept and Prosocial Behavior 57

The t-test analyses revealed no significant differences in comparisons of the frequency of prosocial behaviors between (1) boys and girls, (2) older and younger subjects, (3) subjects in their first year of day care and those in their second year; and (4) subjects with fewer than two siblings and those with two or more.

Finally, the following correlations involving teacher perceptions of the subjects' self-concepts and their prosocial behavior were all significant: (1) self-concept scores and teacher evaluations of self-concepts (r= .34, p < .01); (2) self-concept scores and teacher evaluations of prosocial behavior (r = .48, p < .01); (3) prosocial behavior scores and teacher evaluations of prosocial behavior (r= .39, p<.01) ; and (4) prosocial behavior scores and teacher evaluations of self-concepts (r= .53, p < .01).

DISCUSSION

Several important findings regarding factors related to prosocial behavior were evident in this study. First, the data clearly indicate that the way 4- and 5-year-old children feel about themselves is related to the frequency of their prosocial behavior when it is confined to cooperating. This relation- ship occurs regardless of sex or age of child, family size, or number of years in day care. This finding supports the theoretical position stated earlier that a child with a positive self-concept has less need to engage in competitive in- teractions with other children and is more willing to engage in cooperative behavior.

The fact that cooperating behavior was the only one of the three prosocial behaviors to relate significantly to self-concept is difficult to explain. It is clear that there was a preponderance of cooperating behaviors when com- pared with the number of sharing and helping behaviors (Table 1). One ex- planation for this high frequency might be that there was more opportunity for cooperating behaviors to be recorded because of the greater complexity of the interaction. That is, cooperating behavior could be observed in the initiation, continuation, and completion stages of the interaction, and chil- dren could receive points for cooperating behavior both when they had been the initiator of the interaction and when they were participating passively. When sharing and helping behaviors were observed, it became clear that they occurred only in the initiation stage and only when a child was playing an active role in the interaction.

Another explanation for this lower frequency of helping behaviors, sug- gested by Greenberg (1980), is that helping behavior gives rise to feelings of indebtedness and makes the children involved uncomfortable. Worschel & Norvell (1980) proposes a similar explanation. He feels that the preponder- ance of cooperating behavior over helping is a result of the power structure that is set up in a helping interaction. This power structure causes uncom-

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fortable boundaries and distinctions between people, so cooperating behav- ior is preferred.

These findings have implications for the classroom. Most obviously, they indicate that one way to foster cooperating behavior in the classroom is to focus on building children's self-concepts. In support of this finding, Aron- son's (1977) work suggests that, in order for prosocial behavior to be learned in the classroom, there must be development and enhancement of the child's self-esteem and the development of productive interpersonal relations. In addition, studies have shown that children from cooperative classroms are more helpful than children from competitive classrooms, make better grades, are more creative, and have better school attitudes (Johnson & Johnson, 1983; Slavin, 1980; Yager, Johnson, Johnson, & Snider, 1985).

A second important finding is that, while the data show no significant relationships between self-concept and the quality of prosocial behavior-- that is, whether it is effective or ineffective, self- or other-initiated--the positive relationship between effective prosocial behavior and self-initiated prosocial behavior is significant. In other words, when the child initiates a prosocial behavior, it is more likely to be effective than if the child is in- structed to behave prosocially. In a related study comparing prosocial behavior of handicapped and typical children, Honig and McCarron (1988) found that for both groups significantly more prosocial behaviors were spontaneous than teacher directed. Additionally, these authors reported that setting had a significant effect on prosocial behavior. During free play, prosocial behaviors were most frequent; during teacher-directed, structured circle time, prosocial behaviors were least frequent. In terms of frequency of prosocial behavior and of the more effective prosocial behavior being self-initiated, again there are implications for the classroom. To foster pro- social behavior and enhance the self-esteem resulting from the effectiveness of the behavior, teachers need to be aware of the value of reinforcing pro- social behavior rather than directing children to behave prosocially.

The fact that no significant differences emerged in comparing the fre- quency of prosocial behavior between boys and girls, older and younger siblings, one or two years in day care, and fewer than two siblings suggests that these variables have little relevance to whether or not prosocial behav- iors are learned. From the viewpoint of social learning theory and from earlier research findings, some differences were expected. For example, girls were expected to exhibit more prosocial behaviors because of their cultural conditioning for nurturance. Similarly, in a family with several siblings one might predict that a child would be expected to be more helping, sharing, and cooperating than in a family with few siblings. However, neither of these expectations was supported in this study. It may be that sample size was a factor in explaining the absence of any difference in these comparisons.

Finally, the data that show teacher perceptions of children's self-concepts and their observations of prosocial behaviors to be positively related to

Self-Concept and Prosocial Behavior 59

other assessments indicate that teachers can accurately evaluate a child's self-concept to the extent that it correlates with the child's score on a self- concept measure. This finding suggests that teachers are able to put them- selves "in the shoes" of the 4- and 5-year-olds with whom they are working.

In addition, the teachers' assessments of the frequency of the subjects' prosocial behavior is positively correlated with the frequency of prosocial behavior recorded by the observers in the day care. In other words, these teachers are aware of the extent to which each child is behaving prosocially. This abilility to identify children who are effective or ineffective in learning prosocial behavior is essential, since we know that children require adult guidance in their prosocial development.

In conclusion, this study strongly supports the assumption that self- concept as a personality characteristic has an impact on behavior. Specifi- cally, children with positive self-concepts demonstrate more cooperating behavior when interacting with other children. This study also demonstrates that teachers can make appropriate assessments of children's self-concepts and can be accurate observers of their students' prosocial behavior. They therefore have the potential for enhancing self-concepts and for reinforcing prosocial behavior in the classroom.

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