"Helping" Versus "Being a Helper": Invoking the Self to Increase Helping in Young Children

Can a subtle linguistic cue that invokes the self motivate children to help? In two experiments, 3- to 6-year-old children (N=149) were exposed to the idea of being a helper (noun condition) or helping (verb condition). Noun wording fosters the perception that a behavior reflects an identitythe kind of person one is. Both when children interacted with an adult who referenced being a helper or helping () and with a new adult (), children in the noun condition helped significantly more across four tasks than children in the verb condition or a baseline control condition. The results demonstrate that children are motivated to pursue a positive identity. Moreover, this motivation can be leveraged to encourage prosocial behavior.