Hoffmann, Ferdinand;
Grosse Wiesmann, Charlotte;
Singer, Tania;
Steinbeis, Nikolaus;
(2022)
Development of functional network architecture explains changes in children's altruistically motivated helping.
Developmental Science
, 25
(2)
, Article e13167. 10.1111/desc.13167.
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Abstract
Childhood is marked by profound changes in prosocial behaviour. The underlying motivational mechanisms remain poorly understood. We investigated the development of altruistically motivated helping in middle childhood and the neurocognitive and -affective mechanisms driving this development. One-hundred and twenty seven 6-12 year-old children performed a novel gustatory costly helping task designed to measure altruistic motivations of helping behaviour. Neurocognitive and -affective mechanisms including emotion regulation, emotional clarity and attentional reorienting were assessed experimentally through an extensive task-battery while functional brain activity and connectivity were measured during an empathy for taste paradigm and during rest. Altruistically motivated helping increased with age. Out of all mechanisms probed for, only emotional clarity increased with age and accounted for altruistically motivated helping. This was associated with greater functional integration of the empathy-related network with fronto-parietal brain regions at rest. We isolate a highly specific neuroaffective mechanism as the crucial driver of altruistically motivated helping during child development.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Development of functional network architecture explains changes in children's altruistically motivated helping |
| Location: | England |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1111/desc.13167 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.13167 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © 2021 The Authors. Developmental Science published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes. |
| Keywords: | Social Sciences, Psychology, Developmental, Psychology, Experimental, Psychology, altruistic motivation, development, empathy network, helping, middle childhood, prosocial behaviour, DISTINCT NEURAL-NETWORKS, EMOTION REGULATION, INDIVIDUAL-DIFFERENCES, PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOR, EMPATHY, BRAIN, FMRI, CONNECTIVITY, CHILDHOOD, DISTRESS |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences > Clinical, Edu and Hlth Psychology |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10172937 |
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