The Differential role of parenting, peers, and temperament for explaining interindividual differences in 18-months-olds' comforting and helping

•Comforting is related to parenting style, day care attendance and temperamental fear.•No such relations were found for toddlers instrumental helping.•These factors account for 34% of the variance in comforting behavior.•Findings help to explain domain-specific development of early prosocial behaviors.•Social and individual factors are important in explaining individual differences.

This study analyzes temperamental and social correlates of 18-month-olds' (N = 58) instrumental helping (i.e., handing over out-of-reach objects) and comforting (i.e., alleviating experimenter's distress). While out-of-reach helping as a basic type of prosocial behavior was not associated with any of the social and temperamental variables, comforting was associated with maternal responsible parenting, day care attendance, and temperamental fear, accounting for 34% of the total variance in a corresponding regression model. The data of the present study suggest that, while simple instrumental helping seems to be a robust developmental phenomenon, comforting is associated with specific social experiences and child temperament that constitute interindividual differences and thereby help to explain the domain-specific development of prosociality.