Young children who have experienced compassionate love and empathy from their mothers are more likely to be generous to others, says a study published in Frontiers in Psychology: Emotion Science (November). The study conducted by the University of California, Davis, surveyed 74 preschool-age children and their mothers. While mothers completed surveys that assessed how they display compassion to their offspring, the children completed various activities and received tokens after completion of each activity. Children who had experienced positive parenting showed more willingness to give up the tokens they had earned to fictional children in need.
“Compassionate mothers tend to develop emotionally close relationships with their children while also providing an early example of prosocial orientation towards the needs of others,” says Paul Hastings, lead author and professor of psychology at UC Davis.
The study also found that being generous had significant biological benefits for children. Based on their heart monitor readings, the researchers found the more tokens the children donated the less anxious and stressed they were at the end of the experiment.
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