The effect of social norms and model types on young Chinese children’s helping decisions

Social norms shape children’s prosocial behavior, but how norm types and model characteristics influence costly helping remains unclear. Two experiments examined helping decisions and time to helping among 768 Chinese children aged 4–6 years. Experiment 1 (n = 288) compared descriptive, injunctive, and control conditions, treating age as a continuous predictor. Overall, both pro-helping norms increased helping, and the effect of descriptive norms strengthened with age. Experiment 2 (n = 480) manipulated norm type, model intimacy, and model social power among 5- and 6-year-olds. Higher model intimacy and social power were associated with more frequent and faster helping. In exploratory analyses, norm type interacted with model social power: descriptive norms promoted helping more than injunctive norms under low social power, but not under high social power. These findings highlight the joint relevance of normative information, model characteristics, and age-related development for children’s helping decisions.