Developmental pathways of infant helping toward caregivers and unfamiliar adults: A longitudinal study

Infants help caregivers and unfamiliar others by their first birthday. Yet, developmental pathways leading to helping are largely unknown. This longitudinal study (6, 10, 14 months) investigated the association of caregiver–child interaction quality, motor development, action anticipation, and caregiver encouragement and modeling with helping (N = 118, 49 female, mostly White, European, data collection 2020–2022). Path models showed that helping the mother was related to motor development and maternal modeling, while helping the experimenter was related to motor development, action anticipation, and maternal interaction quality. This study provides novel evidence for a developmental systems approach to helping, emphasizing that early helping behavior is shaped by the caregiver–child interaction and interwoven with both motor and social development.