Helping, Sharing, and Comforting in Young Children: Links to Individual Differences in Attachment

Abstract

Although attachment theory has long posited a link between early experiences of care and children's prosocial behavior, investigations of this association have not embraced the multifaceted nature of prosociality. This study is the first to assess associations between child attachment and independent observations of helping, sharing, and comforting. Attachment quality in 3- to 5-year-old children (N = 137) was linked to all three prosocial behaviors. Additionally, bifactor analyses revealed distinct associations between attachment and children's general prosocial dispositions and their specific abilities to meet the unique challenges of helping and, marginally, comforting. These findings underscore the importance of considering multiple explanations for links between attachment and prosocial behavior and provide novel insights into sources of variation in children's prosociality.