Even One Year Olds Try to Help Others

We all have the capacity for caring about others and helping them out. But how early do we develop kindness?

According to results from a new study, it may begin very early in life—even earlier than other research has suggested.

How babies try to help

In this study, researcher Rose Donohue of Washington University, St. Louis, and her colleagues studied the behavior of a group of diverse 11- to 20-month-old babies (more than half were Black and low-income) to see how they would respond to someone needing help. After some initial testing to measure their cognitive and motor skills, babies were placed in a high chair facing a researcher who demonstrated two tasks: putting multiple balls into a box, or stacking blocks. 



The researcher first showed how the task is done (in a playful way); then, she mimicked being unable to reach the piece she needed to finish the task, signaling a desire for assistance. The baby could help by either putting the ball or block into the researcher’s hand or finishing the task for her (by putting the ball in the box or placing the block on the pile). If the baby didn’t help after 20 seconds passed, the researcher indicated she needed assistance in more obvious ways—like saying, “The ball” or “I can’t reach.”

A research assistant kept track of whether babies assisted in one of the two ways and, if so, how much time passed before they stepped up to help. Approximations of helping—such as a baby approaching the researchers’ hand or the ball bin—were also noted.

Through a series of analyses, Donohue and her colleagues looked at how frequently babies helped, what kinds of help they gave, and whether helping was affected by the age or sex of the baby.

What they found was amazing: Over 80% of the youngest babies in the group (no more than 12 months old) offered to help the researchers by retrieving out-of-reach items and either handing them over or completing the task. This was true no matter the baby’s gender or cognitive and motor skills; and almost all helping occurred without any prompting—within the first 20 seconds of the task.

This surprised Donohue.

“We were thinking the rates might be low, and that a helping approximation might be meaningful in this young age group,” she says. “But the kids fully helped so much more than we thought they would, and at much higher rates than we expected.”

Kinds of helping

Over several rounds, the babies were about evenly split between those who handed the ball or block to the researcher and those who finished the task for them—and they tended to keep to the same strategy across rounds. Donohue says this means babies are already developing preferred ways to help—something that may continue into later life.

“This really speaks to the possibility that kids’ helping behaviors are not only more frequent at a younger age, but more sophisticated and developed than we adults would initially guess,” she says.

Her research team also found that baby girls had a slight preference for handing the ball to the researcher, while baby boys had a preference for completing the task themselves. Donohue doesn’t know why that would be, but speculates socialization plays a role. Girls may be encouraged to pay more attention to the person in an interaction, while boys may be encouraged to demonstrate self-efficacy more.

“People think of socialization factors coming [into play] later on, but we know that those are starting right from the get-go,” she says. “Babies are watching everything parents are doing, soaking everything up like a sponge.”

Interestingly, the percentage of kids helping did not increase much between younger and older babies, though there was a slight tick upward. However, older babies were more likely to help on all of their rounds and help by completing the task themselves. This may be due to older babies becoming more comfortable and confident in their abilities as they age, says Donohue.

Kinder babies, kinder society?

Her study informs future research on moral development, as babies appear to demonstrate “prosocial” leanings very young in life. The key to uncovering this tendency, though, says Donohue, is offering a helping challenge that’s within a baby’s developmental capabilities—and working with larger, more diverse groups of babies.

“Giving children this age a chance to show what they can do—by recruiting a large sample of them and designing the tasks to give them the most opportunities to be kind—can pull out their greatest abilities,” she says.

Her work has implications for parents, she adds. If we want our kids to learn how to be kind and helpful toward others, the building blocks are already there within them. That’s a tendency that can be nurtured.

To raise kind kids, Donohue suggests that parents model kind behavior themselves, giving their babies opportunities to learn through observation. While it’s unclear from her study if positive reinforcement would help or hinder kindness—the researcher in her experiment was trained not to smile at or praise the babies in any way—she believes parental encouragement could make a positive difference in raising helpful children.

“Young kids have much more advanced and innate abilities to learn prosocial behaviors and kindness and empathy than scientists ever thought,” she says. “If you’re a parent, you should feel free to encourage these behaviors in them. They’re wired for it, and parents can build upon them.”