Early prosocial development across cultures.

Human prosociality is ubiquitous, even though it may be manifested differently across cultures. Low cost helping and sharing emerge early in development, and at similar levels, across cultures having vastly different sociocultural niches. Developmental trajectories for costly sharing diverge across cultures around middle childhood, in line with differences in the sociocultural niches that children experience. Cultural developmental research has focussed primarily on the emergence and development of prosocial behaviour, and would benefit from an examination of the interplay between psychological (cognitive, motivational) and sociocultural (norms, developmental niche) foundations over ontogeny.