Feeling good for doing good: recognizing children’s moral pride 

From an article by Child and Family blog

Moral pride is the warm feeling you get after doing a good deed, such as helping someone or sharing something. 

Children’s social lives are complicated. They have to navigate their own desires, wishes, and impulses while learning to consider the needs of others and broader societal expectations. At times, children give in to their frustrations and pursue self-fulfilling goals at the expense of others (as do adults). But perhaps more commonly, children choose to engage in selfless acts of kindness.

Parents and other caregivers begin teaching their children kindness as soon as they are born by showing sensitivity to infants’ needs and modelling care and concern for their well-being. Over time, caregivers explicitly teach their children how and when to behave kindly toward others through demonstrations and conversations e.g. “sharing is caring”.

Children continue to develop their kindness alongside same-aged peers in school as they learn to consider others’ perspectives and build their understanding of what it means to be a caring person. But once children develop their repertoires of kindness, what motivates them to continue to be kind across time, contexts, and targets?

Theoretically, moral pride motivates kindness by fostering a sense of personal fulfilment and purpose; it also encourages individuals to keep engaging in the kind of action that incited the feeling in the first place. However, we still know relatively little about the development of this emotion in childhood and whether it functions in the same way across cultural contexts.

In Canada, the United States, and some European countries like Italy and Spain, pride is highly valued, expected, and celebrated in children. In contrast, pride tends to be discouraged in East Asian cultures because it contradicts values of humility and modesty. Thus, the broader cultural context in which children are raised may influence whether moral pride is encouraged and, as a result, whether it motivates children’s good deeds.

Joanna Peplak, Assistant Professor, Simon Fraser University, Canada and colleagues conducted a cross-cultural study to investigate the development of moral pride and its potential role in promoting kind behaviour in children. 

What were the findings? 

• Canadian children were more likely to report moral pride than were Japanese children, likely due to divergent cultural norms regarding expressing emotions in the context of achievement. While it is encouraged and expected for children in Canada to feel proud after doing something good, Japanese parents encourage modesty and humility, and thus expect children to temper their joy following achievements.
• In both Canada and Japan, older children (9- and 12-year-olds) were more likely to report moral pride than were younger children (6-year-olds). This suggests that the period between six and nine years may be a promising time to encourage the development of moral pride across cultures.
• Japanese children who reported moral pride were frequently kind in their daily interactions at school. Although pride in general may be discouraged in Japanese culture, moral pride may have benefits for supporting social harmony (at least in a school setting) and thus may serve a positive function. 
• For Canadian children, moral pride was not associated with kindness. 

Here are a few ways parents and caregivers can support the development of moral pride in their children:

1. Model your feelings of moral pride. Children learn a lot from observation and tend to take on and mimic their parents’ emotions and behaviors. Expressing your feelings of pride following kind acts may support children’s own development of moral pride.

2. Point out signs of moral pride. When you see your child or someone else help another person, look at their facial expressions and the words they use. If they are smiling and using kind words such as “it’s my pleasure to help!” they may be experiencing moral pride. Point out such situations to your child. Helping your child understand what moral pride is and when it typically occurs in others can help them identify the emotion in themselves.

3. Engage children in conversations about emotions and kindness. Ask children how they feel after helping or sharing with someone, and talk about why they wanted to help or share with them in the first place. These discussions may encourage children to process their feelings of pride and increase their awareness of the emotion.

4. Identify moral pride in popular media. Together with your child, look for situations in story books, movies, and games where moral pride may occur. Discussing a range of instances that trigger moral pride may enrich children’s understanding of the different types of behaviours and contexts that may incite the emotion.

Children tend to feel proud of their good deeds – a tendency that increases with age. While this emotion may have benefits in the moment, the advantages of moral pride may reach beyond the immediate context. That is, in some cultures, moral pride may inspire children to continue to spread their kindness to others.

Read the full article here.