| Title |
The roots of human altruism
|
|---|---|
| Published in |
British Journal of Psychology, May 2011
|
| DOI | 10.1348/000712608x379061 |
| Pubmed ID | |
| Authors |
Felix Warneken, Michael Tomasello |
| Abstract |
Human infants as young as 14 to 18 months of age help others attain their goals, for example, by helping them to fetch out-of-reach objects or opening cabinets for them. They do this irrespective of any reward from adults (indeed external rewards undermine the tendency), and very likely with no concern for such things as reciprocation and reputation, which serve to maintain altruism in older children and adults. Humans' nearest primate relatives, chimpanzees, also help others instrumentally without concrete rewards. These results suggest that human infants are naturally altruistic, and as ontogeny proceeds and they must deal more independently with a wider range of social contexts, socialization and feedback from social interactions with others become important mediators of these initial altruistic tendencies. |
X Demographics
The data shown below were collected from the profile of 1 X user who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Saudi Arabia | 1 | 100% |
Demographic breakdown
| Type | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Members of the public | 1 | 100% |
Mendeley readers
The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 704 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 10 | 1% |
| United Kingdom | 3 | <1% |
| Germany | 3 | <1% |
| Switzerland | 2 | <1% |
| Italy | 2 | <1% |
| Austria | 2 | <1% |
| Japan | 2 | <1% |
| Portugal | 2 | <1% |
| France | 1 | <1% |
| Other | 7 | <1% |
| Unknown | 670 | 95% |
Demographic breakdown
| Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Student > Ph. D. Student | 148 | 21% |
| Student > Bachelor | 142 | 20% |
| Student > Master | 87 | 12% |
| Researcher | 56 | 8% |
| Student > Doctoral Student | 44 | 6% |
| Other | 116 | 16% |
| Unknown | 111 | 16% |
| Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Psychology | 343 | 49% |
| Agricultural and Biological Sciences | 51 | 7% |
| Social Sciences | 51 | 7% |
| Business, Management and Accounting | 30 | 4% |
| Neuroscience | 16 | 2% |
| Other | 84 | 12% |
| Unknown | 129 | 18% |
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 390. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 18 January 2021.
All research outputs
#74,348
of 24,627,841 outputs
Outputs from British Journal of Psychology
#11
of 984 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#177
of 114,120 outputs
Outputs of similar age from British Journal of Psychology
#2
of 235 outputs
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