A measure of prosocial choice in story dilemmas was created by adding 23 stories to an original 4 studied by Eisenberg-Berg and Hand (1979). Each story called upon the child to make either a prosocial or a hedonistic choice in the hypothetical situation. Adding more items improved the internal consistency of the measure, as predicted by the Spearman-Brown formula. In our Head Start sample, the children's prosocial responses significantly predicted more prosocial ratings of child behavior by parents. The same relationship held, although less consistently, with behavior ratings carried out by observers in the Head Start classroom. Parents' ratings of themselves on mental health and parenting variables were not related to the measure of prosocial choice in story dilemmas. These findings as a whole provide some exception to past findings of lack of correspondence between responses to hypothetical situations and real-life behavior.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Achenbach, T. M., Edelbrock, C., & Howell, C. T. (1987). The empirically based assessment of the behavioral/emotional problems of two- and three-year-old children.
2.
American Psychiatric Association. (1987). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (3rd ed. rev.) Washington: Author.
3.
Barrett, D. E. (1979). Relations between aggressive and prosocial behaviors in children. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 134, 317-318.
4.
Bar-Tal, D., Raviv, A., & Leiser, T. (1980). The development of altruistic behavior: Empirical evidence. Developmental Psychology, 16, 516-524.
5.
Barton, E. J. (1986). Modification of children's prosocial behavior. In P. S. Strain, M. J. Guralnick, and H. M. Walker (Eds.), Children's social behavior: Development, assessment & modification (pp. 331-372).
6.
Beck, A. T. (1967). Depression: Clinical, experimental, and theoretical aspects. New York: Harper & Row.
7.
Behar, L. B. (1977). The preschool behavior questionnaire. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 5, 265-275.
8.
Behar, L. B., & Stringfield, S. (1974). A behavior rating scale for the preschool child. Developmental Psychology, 10, 601-610.
9.
Buss, A. H., & Durkee, A. (1957). An inventory for assessing the different kinds of hostility. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 21, 343-349.
10.
Cohen, J. (1977). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences. New York: Academic Press.
11.
Cronbach, L. J. (1970). Essentials of psychological testing. New York: Harper & Row.
12.
Dreman, S. B. (1976). Sharing behavior in Israeli school children: Cognitive and social learning factors. Child Development, 47, 186-194.
13.
Dreman, S. B., & Greenbaum, C. W. (1973). Altruism or reciprocity: Sharing behavior in Israeli kindergarten children. Child Development, 44, 61-68.
14.
Dunn, L. M., & Dunn, L. M. (1981). Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, Revised. Circle Pines, MN: American Guidance Service.
15.
Eisenberg-Berg, N. (1979). Development of children's prosocial moral judgment. Developmental Psychology, 15, 128-137.
16.
Eisenberg-Berg, N., & Hand, M. (1979). The relationship of preschoolers' reasoning about prosocial moral conflicts to prosocial behavior. Child Development, 50, 356-363.
17.
Eisenberg, N., Lennon, R., & Roth, K. (1983). Prosocial development: A longitudinal study. Developmental Psychology, 19, 846-855.
18.
Eisenberg, N. & Neal, C. (1979). Children's moral reasoning about their own spontaneous prosocial behavior. Developmental Psychology, 15, 228-229.
19.
Eron, L. D., & Huesman, L. R. (1984). The relation of prosocial behavior to the development of aggression and psychopathology. Aggressive Behavior, 10, 201-211.
20.
Factor, D. C., & Frankie, G. H. (1980). Free-play behaviors in socially maladjusted and normal preschool children: A naturalistic study. Canadian Journal of Behavioral Science, 12, 273-277.
21.
Foster, S. L., & Ritchey, W. L. (1979). Issues in the assessment of social competence in children. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 12, 625-638.
22.
Gardner, M. F. (1979). Expressive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test: Manual. Novato, CA: Academic Therapy.
23.
Harris, S., Mussen, P., & Rutherford, E. (1976). Some cognitive, behavioral and personality correlates of maturity of moral judgment. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 128, 123-135.
24.
Kagan, J. (1984). The nature of the child. New York: Basic Books.
25.
Kazdin, A. E. (1987). Conduct disorders in childhood and adolescence. Developmental clinical psychology and psychiatry, Vol. 9. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
26.
Kohlberg, L. (1969). Stage and sequence: The cognitive-developmental approach to socialization. In D. Goslin (Ed.), Handbook of socialization theory and research. Chicago: Rand McNally.
27.
Moran, J. D. III, & O'Brien, G. O. (1984). Relationship between parental child-rearing attitudes and preschoolers' moral judgments. Psychological Review, 55, 893-894.
28.
Mussen, P., & Eisenberg-Berg, N. (1977). Roots of caring, sharing, and helping. San Francisco: Freeman.
29.
Mussen, P., Harris, S., Rutherford, E., & Keasey, C. B. (1970). Honesty and altruism among preadolescents. Developmental Psychology, 3, 169-194.
30.
Procidano, M. E., & Heller, K. (1983). Measures of perceived social support from friends and from family: Three validation studies. American Journal of Community Psychology, 11, 1-24.
31.
Radke-Yarrow, M., Zahn-Waxler, C., & Chapman, M. (1983). Children's prosocial dispositions and behavior. In M. Hetherington (Ed.), Socialzation, personality, and social development (Vol. 4). New York: John Wiley.
32.
Raviv, A., Bar-Tal, D., & Lewis-Levin, T. (1980). Motivations for donation behavior by boys of three different ages. Child Development, 51, 610-613.
33.
Robertson, G. J., & Eisenberg, J. L. (1981). Technical supplement, Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, Revised, Circle Pines, MN: American Guidance Service.
34.
Rotter, J. B. (1966). Generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforcement. Psychological Monographs, 80 (Whole No. 69).
35.
Staub, E. (1979). Socialization: Basic styles and issues (Vol. 2). New York: Academic Press.
36.
Strayhorn, J., & Weidman, C. (1988). A parent practices scale and its relation to parent and child mental health. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 27, 613-618.
37.
Strayhorn, J. M., Weidman, C. S., & Majumder, A. (1991). Psychometric characteristics of a psychological skills inventory as applied to preschool children. Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment, 8, 467-477.
