ORCID

https://orcid.org/0009-0000-9404-9347

Date of Award

2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

MA in Clinical Psychology

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Tamara Del Vecchio

Second Advisor

Melissa Peckins

Abstract

Prosocial behaviors typically emerge by age two and are associated with positive social and behavioral outcomes. Caregivers shape toddlers’ prosocial behavior development through broad (i.e., general warmth and sensitivity) and specific (i.e., social and material reinforcement) parenting practices. However, current research findings are mixed due to differences in toddler age, parenting practices studied, and the tendency to aggregate prosocial behaviors into one category. This aggregation approach overlooks the unique neurocognitive correlates, skills, and developmental trajectories of individual prosocial behaviors. To address these gaps, the current study investigates how broad and specific parenting practices relate to helping, sharing, and comforting, both concurrently and over time, and whether these relations differ by toddler age. Participants included 398 mothers of toddlers (18 or 24 months old) who completed parent-report scales measuring broad (i.e., parental warmth and sensitivity) and specific (i.e., social and material reinforcement) parenting practices and toddlers’ initial and three-month-later helping, sharing, and comforting frequency. Broad parenting practices were associated with toddlers’ increased initial helping, sharing, and comforting and with helping and comforting three months later. However, specific reinforcement strategies were mostly unrelated to toddlers’ prosocial behaviors. When parents used increased material rewards, their toddlers showed fewer initial helping behaviors. Yet, parents’ use of material rewards was unrelated to toddlers’ remaining prosocial behaviors at any other time. As parents used increased social rewards, there was no relationship with toddlers’ helping, sharing, and comforting at either time. Age differences emerged, such that broad parenting practices were positively related to initial helping frequency in older (24-month-old) but not younger (18-month-old) toddlers. These findings suggest parental warmth and sensitivity, compared to parents’ use of reinforcement strategies, may more strongly support the development of toddlers’ prosocial behaviors. These findings display the importance of examining relations between parenting practices and toddlers’ prosocial behavior development in nuanced ways.

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