Altruism and Cognitive Development in Children

The study examined the interrelationships between a number of age-related cognitive tasks and three different behavioural measures of altruism in 60 7- and 11-year-olds. The cognitive tasks included measures of role-taking ability, egocentricity, cognitive complexity, and conservation. It was intended to assess (a) the notion of generalized cognitive developmental levels, (b) the generality of altruistic behaviour, and (c) the degree to which cognitive-developmental level predicted altruistic behaviour. As expected, highly significant age differences were found on all cognitive tasks. Eleven-year-olds were also significantly more altruistic than were seven-year-olds. Although some generality emerged across altruistic behaviours, no such generalities emerged either between the cognitive measures themselves or between the cognitive measures and altruism. Some of the implications of the findings are discussed.