The Effects of Positive Reinforcement, Attributions, and Punishment on Model Induced Altruism in Children

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Abstract
The effects of positive reinforcement and punishment on model induced altruism was assessed on the subsequent generosity of 60 boys aged 8-11 in relation to a no reinforcement control. This study employed an anonymous test of the child's generosity and did so on both an immediate and a delayed test. Positive reinforcement led to increased generosity while punishment led to a decrement. These effects endured over the two week retest but did not generalize to a different task. In the positive reinforcement condition, three different attributions provided to the child for his generous behavior failed to have a differential effect. A small amount of consistency was found for individual differences in generosity. Further, older children were more generous than younger ones.

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