Do social relationships affect preschoolers´ prosociality?

This interdisciplinary research project is located at the intersection of the scientific branches of comparative behavioural research and developmental psychology. The projects core question is how children`s social relationships affect helping, sharing and supporting behaviour - summarised under the term "prosocial behaviour" - among peers. Preschoolers interactions will be investigated through a combination of methods from both branches of science (e.g. observation during free play, interviews, questionnaire surveys) and with the help of technical innovations (e.g. automatic detection of proximity between children through smart sensor technology). Preschoolers typically spend a large part of their daily life in multi-layered social groups of peers. Here, children`s relationships with each other can take various forms, such as close friendships, but also competing for toys, participation in games or friends. The children`s relationships and their social status in the group influence their actions and shape many of their decisions. In addition, social interactions between peers are crucial for the development of social competence in young children (e.g. empathy). To date, however, little is known about how relationships between peers affect their prosocial behaviour in everyday interactions. This is largely due to the difficulty of reliably and accurately measuring children`s interactions and relationships in multi-layered social groups. However, since complex social interactions cannot always be successfully simulated in laboratory situations, there have been increased efforts to study children`s abilities in situations as close to real life as possible in recent years. Motivated by the renewed interest in social interactions in children`s everyday lives, this project aims to explore the connection between social relationships in established preschool groups and childrens prosocial actions in pairs and group settings. This project is made possible by the latest technical achievements in smart sensor technology. The complex interactions and relationships between preschool peers will be assessed directly in their social groups through small sensors that can be worn on their clothing. These sensors can automatically record which children interact with each other or which children are able secure sole access to particularly popular toys. In this way, large amounts of data can be collected without disturbing the children in their free interactions. Through this interdisciplinary and innovative approach, the project promises to provide a deeper insight into the connection between social relationships and prosocial behaviour in children and thus enables an important gain in knowledge about the development of social competence at preschool age.