O comportamento pró-social e redes sociais de crianças - do indivíduo ao grupo

Abstract

Prosociality is essential to the formation and maintenance of bonds between individuals in societies. However, the decision to act prosocially is influenced by proximal and contextual factors. In this work, we used social network analysis to examine the hypothesis that children’s prosociality in influenced by their position in the network, by the dyadic relationship, and by characteristics of the group. 197 children had their proximity and play networks built from a sampling effort of 98,5 hours of focal observation, betweeen February 2018 to May 2019. They were also submitted to an application of the Dictator's Game, and four repetitions of the Public Goods Game. Our results showed that: At the individual level, higher betweenness centrality in play networks predicted a greater receipt of spontaneous prosocial actions, as well a higher degree in proximity network predicted a greater offer and receipt of these same behaviors. In the public goods game (PGG), a larger local clustering coefficient in play networks and a higher degree in proximity networks predicted less donation to the group. At the dyadic level, we observed a higher proportion of bonds between dyads of the same sex and greater prosocial exchanges between girls. Also, a high index of association in play was predictive of greater prosociality in spontaneous situations and the dictator’s game. At the group level, higher cohesion was the main variable responsible for greater spontaneous prosociality and donation in the PGG. There was greater prosociality in dyads of girls, but we did not detect gender differences in the other contexts and indexes analyzed. Similarly, age had no influence on the behaviors analyzed. We highlight differences presented in the expression of these behaviors in spontaneous situations and economic games, in which children seem to use more prosocial strategies in public and low-cost situations and in sharing preferred goods. Generally speaking, we emphasize the importance of social play in the creation of interventions aimed at increasing individuals’ prosocial commitment.