Toddlers are happier giving treats to others than receiving them, study finds

A new study published in Developmental Science suggests that the act of giving to others is intrinsically rewarding for humans, even at a very young age. Scientists found that toddlers express more happiness when sharing treats with someone else than when receiving treats themselves. This provides evidence that human cooperation is driven by a natural emotional reward from prosocial behavior, which refers to actions intended to benefit others.

Across many different cultures, people routinely share their resources with friends and strangers. These generous acts often come at a personal cost, ranging from giving food to a neighbor to donating an organ. Scientists wanted to understand what motivates this type of deep cooperation.

“Human beings are remarkably (pro)social, and some individuals are willing to share resources even at significant personal cost (as seen in surrogate pregnancy and organ donation). We are therefore very interested in exploring the developmental origins and motivational forces behind these generous sharing behaviors,” said study author Enda Tan, an assistant professor at the University of Victoria.

Previous research suggests that helping others creates a positive feedback loop of happiness, a concept psychologists often call a “warm glow.” This positive emotional response encourages future acts of generosity. However, past studies on young children often relied on very small sample sizes.

The small size of previous study groups made it difficult to precisely estimate how much happiness giving actually produced. In addition, previous experiments left open an alternative explanation for the children’s positive reactions. It was possible that toddlers were not smiling because they enjoyed sharing, but simply because they liked following the instructions of a friendly adult.

Young children are highly attentive to social rules and generally want to please the adults around them. The researchers designed the current experiment to test these possibilities directly. They aimed to see if toddlers truly enjoy the act of giving, or if they just enjoy doing what they are told.

The team recruited 134 healthy toddlers, ranging in age from exactly 16.57 to 23.77 months. During the experiment, the children sat on their caregiver’s lap across a table from a scientist. To prevent caregivers from influencing the toddlers, the adults wore headphones with music and kept their eyes closed.

The experimenters then introduced the children to a stuffed monkey puppet. They explained that the monkey liked to eat treats, such as graham crackers or Goldfish crackers. The main part of the experiment involved a series of structured interactions centered around these snacks.

First, the scientist gave the toddler eight treats, which allowed the child to experience receiving an appealing reward. Then, the toddler participated in four different scenarios in a randomized order. In the “costly giving” scenario, the child was asked to give one of their own treats to the monkey.

In the “non-costly giving” scenario, the scientist provided a new treat from a hidden bowl and asked the child to give it to the monkey. The study also included two additional scenarios to serve as comparisons. During the “observe giving” phase, the scientist gave a treat to the monkey while the child simply watched.

Finally, in the “give to self” phase, the scientist provided a treat and asked the child to keep it. This last scenario was designed to test whether toddlers were simply happy to follow an adult’s instructions, even when the action was not generous. The monkey puppet reacted with the same enthusiasm every time it received a snack.

To measure the children’s emotional responses, the researchers recorded video of the toddlers’ faces during each phase. Independent reviewers, who did not know the purpose of the study, watched the videos and rated the children’s happiness on a seven-point scale. A score of one represented a lack of happiness, while a score of seven indicated a very happy response, such as laughing.

The scientists also rated the monkey puppet’s apparent enthusiasm. This helped them check for emotional contagion, which is a psychological phenomenon where a person simply “catches” or mimics the emotions of someone around them. They wanted to ensure the child was not just reflecting the puppet’s joy.

The findings indicate that toddlers experience a measurable boost in mood when engaging in generous behavior. The children displayed significantly more happiness after giving a treat to the monkey than they did after receiving their own bowl of treats. This positive emotional response occurred whether the toddlers gave away their own treats or handed over a treat provided by the scientist.

The data also helps rule out the idea that the toddlers were just enjoying the process of following instructions. The children were consistently happier when instructed to give a treat to the monkey than when instructed to give a treat to themselves. Giving a treat to themselves produced no more happiness than receiving treats at the beginning of the game.

The researchers also found that taking an active role in sharing tends to be more rewarding than watching someone else be generous. The toddlers showed greater happiness when they personally handed a non-costly treat to the puppet compared to when they merely observed the scientist feeding the monkey. When combining both forms of giving, the children were significantly happier acting generously than simply watching.

Finally, the researchers noted that the toddlers’ joy did not simply mirror the puppet’s happy reactions. The statistical analysis showed that variations in the puppet’s displayed enthusiasm did not predict how happy the children were. This suggests the happiness was a direct result of performing a kind action, rather than emotional contagion.

“This study provides evidence that, soon after sharing behaviors emerge, young children experience greater reward from giving resources to others than from receiving resources, observing others give, or giving to themselves,” Tan told PsyPost. “This suggests that sharing is intrinsically rewarding early in development, which may create a positive feedback loop reinforcing future generosity.”

While these findings provide evidence for an early emotional reward tied to sharing, there are some limitations to consider. The study relied on a specific sample of families from a North American city. Future research could recruit more diverse groups of children from different cultural backgrounds to see if this emotional reward is universal.

The scientists also suggest using biological measurements in future studies to evaluate emotions. Tools that measure changes in pupil size or skin conductance could track happiness more objectively than coding facial expressions.

The study, “Toddlers Are Happier Giving to Others Than to Themselves,” was authored by Enda Tan, Julia Van de Vondervoort, Jeneesha Dhaliwal, Lara B. Aknin, and Jane Kiley Hamlin.