Robert Hepach
Biographic Data
| ID | 5761468 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Robert Hepach |
| GIVEN NAMES | Robert |
| FAMILY NAME | Hepach |
| SIGNATURE | HEPACH R |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Oxford |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4780-6549 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 13 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 16 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2013 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Does young children’s interest in categories influence their familiar word–object recognition?
Over the first 2 years, children learn to recognize many familiar objects when hearing its label. Nonetheless, recognition is influenced by factors such as category size, frequency, and salience. Since a child’s individual interests influence word learning , we hypothesized that they might also modulate attention during recognition. Twenty-two- to thirty-nine-month-old typically developing German children’s familiar word–object recognition was me…
Choosing to help others at a cost to oneself elevates preschoolers' body posture
Young children sometimes help others at a cost to themselves, but little is known about the emotional mechanisms underlying this behaviour. Here, 5-year-old children (n = 96, 45 girls, mean age = 5.57 years, SD = 1.79 months, range = 5.19 years to 5.9 years, families recruited from a local database based in a medium-sized German city) were engaged in one task and then asked either to help (child-helps) or watch (child-watches) an adult complete a…
Social reward predicts false belief understanding in Namibian Hai||om children
Social motivation is theorized to promote Theory of Mind development in childhood, but research testing this link is scarce and largely limited to urban middle‐class milieus of the Global North. Here, we investigated the link between social motivation (i.e., social reward responsivity) and Theory of Mind (i.e., false belief understanding) among N = 59 Hai||om children ( Age Range = 2.3–8.0 years) from rural Namibia, an indigenous community where …
Context matters in myriad ways
Context matters in myriad ways: a reply to ‘Building a cooperative child: evidence and lessons cross-culturally’ by Tanya Broesch and Erin Robbins" published on 02 Nov 2023 by Bristol University Press
How being observed influences preschoolers’ emotions following (less) deserving help
Children sometimes show positive emotions in response to seeing others being helped, yet it remains poorly understood whether there is a strategic value to such emotional expressions. Here, we investigated the influence seeing a peer receive deserving help or not on children's emotions, which were assessed while the peer was present or not. To measure children's emotional expression, we used a motion depth sensor imaging camera, which recorded ch…
Toddlers Prefer Adults as Informants
Two- and 3-year-old children (N = 96) were tested in an object-choice task with video presentations of peer and adult partners. An immersive, semi-interactive procedure enabled both the close matching of adult and peer conditions and the combination of participants’ choice behavior with looking time measures. Children were more likely to use information provided by adults. As the effect was more pronounced in the younger age-group, the observed b…
Infants’ Preference for Social Interactions Increases from 7 to 13 Months of Age
This study examined 7-to-13.5-month-old middle-class Western infants’ visual orienting to third-party interactions in parallel with their social attention behavior during own social interactions (Leipzig, Germany). In Experiment 1, 9.5- to-11-month-olds (n = 20) looked longer than 7- to-8.5-month-olds (n = 20) at videos showing two adults interacting with one another when simultaneously presented with a scene showing two adults acting individuall…
Social interaction targets enhance 13‐month‐old infants' associative learning
Infants are attentive to third‐party interactions, but the underlying mechanisms of this preference remain understudied. This study examined whether 13‐month‐old infants ( N = 32) selectively learn cue–target associations guiding them to videos depicting a social interaction scene. In a visual learning task, two geometrical shapes were repeatedly paired with two kinds of target videos: two adults interacting with one another (social interaction) …
Observing others’ joint attention increases 9-month-old infants’ object encoding
In direct interactions with others, 9-month-old infants' learning about objects is facilitated when the interaction partner addresses the infant through eye contact before looking toward an object. In this study we investigated whether similar factors promote infants' observational learning from third-party interactions. In Experiment 1, 9-month-old typically developing infants from mixed socioeconomic backgrounds from urban Germany (N = 32, 13 f…
The Study of Prosocial Emotions in Early Childhood
The study of young children’s prosocial emotions, especially as they regulate children’s social interactions toward cooperative ends, is burgeoning. We join Algoe (2020) and Tsang (2020) in their assessment that early ontogeny provides a unique window into the study of prosocial emotions, and that the behavioural methods developed to study prosocial emotions in young children could productively be employed across the lifespan. One particularly in…
How socialization goals and peer social climate predict young children's concern for others
Children's concern for others is shaped through socialization, but current theories make different predictions as to how and when in development this socializing occurs. Here we found that mothers' prosocial socialization goals (SGs) predicted concern for others in 2‐year‐old ( n = 804) and 4‐year‐old ( n = 714) children. In contrast, preschool teachers' SGs predicted concern for others only for 4‐year‐old children. In addition, a positive social…
Being observed increases overimitation in three diverse cultures
From a young age, children in Western, industrialized societies overimitate others' actions. However, the underlying motivation and cultural specificity of this behavior have remained unclear. Here, 3- to 8-year-old children (N = 125) from two rural Namibian populations (Hai||om and Ovambo) and one urban German population were tested in two versions of an overimitation paradigm. Across cultures, children selectively imitated more actions when the…
Toddlers Help Anonymously
Young children are extremely motivated to help others, but it is not clear whether they do so in anonymous situations without social recognition. In two studies, we found that 18‐month‐old toddlers provided help equally in situations where an adult recipient was present and in situations where an adult recipient was not present. We included several control conditions to rule out that toddlers were simply unaware of their anonymity or were merely …
The fulfillment of others’ needs elevates children’s body posture
Much is known about young children's helping behavior, but little is known about the underlying motivations and emotions involved. In 2 studies we found that 2-year-old children showed positive emotions of similar magnitude-as measured by changes in their postural elevation using depth sensor imaging technology-after they achieved a goal for themselves and after they helped another person achieve her goal. Conversely, children's posture decreased…
A New Look at Children’s Prosocial Motivation
Young children routinely behave prosocially, but what is their motivation for doing so? Here, we review three studies which show that young children (1) are intrinsically motivated rather than motivated by extrinsic rewards; (2) are more inclined to help those for whom they feel sympathy; and (3) are not so much motivated to provide help themselves as to see the person helped (as can be seen in changes of their sympathetic arousal, as measured by…
Young children sympathize less in response to unjustified emotional distress
Three-year-old children saw an adult displaying the exact same distress in 3 different conditions: (a) the adult's distress was appropriate to a genuine harm, (b) the adult's distress was an overreaction to a minor inconvenience, and (c) there was no apparent cause for the adult's distress. Children who witnessed the adult being appropriately upset showed concern for him, intervened on his behalf, and checked on him when he later expressed distre…
Young children sympathize less in response to unjustified emotional distress
Three-year-old children saw an adult displaying the exact same distress in 3 different conditions: (a) the adult's distress was appropriate to a genuine harm, (b) the adult's distress was an overreaction to a minor inconvenience, and (c) there was no apparent cause for the adult's distress. Children who witnessed the adult being appropriately upset showed concern for him, intervened on his behalf, and checked on him when he later expressed distre…
Being observed increases overimitation in three diverse cultures
From a young age, children in Western, industrialized societies overimitate others' actions. However, the underlying motivation and cultural specificity of this behavior have remained unclear. Here, 3- to 8-year-old children (N = 125) from two rural Namibian populations (Hai||om and Ovambo) and one urban German population were tested in two versions of an overimitation paradigm. Across cultures, children selectively imitated more actions when the…
The fulfillment of others’ needs elevates children’s body posture
Much is known about young children's helping behavior, but little is known about the underlying motivations and emotions involved. In 2 studies we found that 2-year-old children showed positive emotions of similar magnitude-as measured by changes in their postural elevation using depth sensor imaging technology-after they achieved a goal for themselves and after they helped another person achieve her goal. Conversely, children's posture decreased…
Context matters in myriad ways
Context matters in myriad ways: a reply to ‘Building a cooperative child: evidence and lessons cross-culturally’ by Tanya Broesch and Erin Robbins" published on 02 Nov 2023 by Bristol University Press
How socialization goals and peer social climate predict young children's concern for others
Children's concern for others is shaped through socialization, but current theories make different predictions as to how and when in development this socializing occurs. Here we found that mothers' prosocial socialization goals (SGs) predicted concern for others in 2‐year‐old ( n = 804) and 4‐year‐old ( n = 714) children. In contrast, preschool teachers' SGs predicted concern for others only for 4‐year‐old children. In addition, a positive social…
A New Look at Children’s Prosocial Motivation
Young children routinely behave prosocially, but what is their motivation for doing so? Here, we review three studies which show that young children (1) are intrinsically motivated rather than motivated by extrinsic rewards; (2) are more inclined to help those for whom they feel sympathy; and (3) are not so much motivated to provide help themselves as to see the person helped (as can be seen in changes of their sympathetic arousal, as measured by…
Young children sympathize less in response to unjustified emotional distress
Three-year-old children saw an adult displaying the exact same distress in 3 different conditions: (a) the adult's distress was appropriate to a genuine harm, (b) the adult's distress was an overreaction to a minor inconvenience, and (c) there was no apparent cause for the adult's distress. Children who witnessed the adult being appropriately upset showed concern for him, intervened on his behalf, and checked on him when he later expressed distre…
Toddlers Help Anonymously
Young children are extremely motivated to help others, but it is not clear whether they do so in anonymous situations without social recognition. In two studies, we found that 18‐month‐old toddlers provided help equally in situations where an adult recipient was present and in situations where an adult recipient was not present. We included several control conditions to rule out that toddlers were simply unaware of their anonymity or were merely …
The fulfillment of others’ needs elevates children’s body posture
Much is known about young children's helping behavior, but little is known about the underlying motivations and emotions involved. In 2 studies we found that 2-year-old children showed positive emotions of similar magnitude-as measured by changes in their postural elevation using depth sensor imaging technology-after they achieved a goal for themselves and after they helped another person achieve her goal. Conversely, children's posture decreased…
Being observed increases overimitation in three diverse cultures
From a young age, children in Western, industrialized societies overimitate others' actions. However, the underlying motivation and cultural specificity of this behavior have remained unclear. Here, 3- to 8-year-old children (N = 125) from two rural Namibian populations (Hai||om and Ovambo) and one urban German population were tested in two versions of an overimitation paradigm. Across cultures, children selectively imitated more actions when the…
The Study of Prosocial Emotions in Early Childhood
The study of young children’s prosocial emotions, especially as they regulate children’s social interactions toward cooperative ends, is burgeoning. We join Algoe (2020) and Tsang (2020) in their assessment that early ontogeny provides a unique window into the study of prosocial emotions, and that the behavioural methods developed to study prosocial emotions in young children could productively be employed across the lifespan. One particularly in…
How socialization goals and peer social climate predict young children's concern for others
Children's concern for others is shaped through socialization, but current theories make different predictions as to how and when in development this socializing occurs. Here we found that mothers' prosocial socialization goals (SGs) predicted concern for others in 2‐year‐old ( n = 804) and 4‐year‐old ( n = 714) children. In contrast, preschool teachers' SGs predicted concern for others only for 4‐year‐old children. In addition, a positive social…
Toddlers Prefer Adults as Informants
Two- and 3-year-old children (N = 96) were tested in an object-choice task with video presentations of peer and adult partners. An immersive, semi-interactive procedure enabled both the close matching of adult and peer conditions and the combination of participants’ choice behavior with looking time measures. Children were more likely to use information provided by adults. As the effect was more pronounced in the younger age-group, the observed b…
Infants’ Preference for Social Interactions Increases from 7 to 13 Months of Age
This study examined 7-to-13.5-month-old middle-class Western infants’ visual orienting to third-party interactions in parallel with their social attention behavior during own social interactions (Leipzig, Germany). In Experiment 1, 9.5- to-11-month-olds (n = 20) looked longer than 7- to-8.5-month-olds (n = 20) at videos showing two adults interacting with one another when simultaneously presented with a scene showing two adults acting individuall…
Social interaction targets enhance 13‐month‐old infants' associative learning
Infants are attentive to third‐party interactions, but the underlying mechanisms of this preference remain understudied. This study examined whether 13‐month‐old infants ( N = 32) selectively learn cue–target associations guiding them to videos depicting a social interaction scene. In a visual learning task, two geometrical shapes were repeatedly paired with two kinds of target videos: two adults interacting with one another (social interaction) …
Observing others’ joint attention increases 9-month-old infants’ object encoding
In direct interactions with others, 9-month-old infants' learning about objects is facilitated when the interaction partner addresses the infant through eye contact before looking toward an object. In this study we investigated whether similar factors promote infants' observational learning from third-party interactions. In Experiment 1, 9-month-old typically developing infants from mixed socioeconomic backgrounds from urban Germany (N = 32, 13 f…
How being observed influences preschoolers’ emotions following (less) deserving help
Children sometimes show positive emotions in response to seeing others being helped, yet it remains poorly understood whether there is a strategic value to such emotional expressions. Here, we investigated the influence seeing a peer receive deserving help or not on children's emotions, which were assessed while the peer was present or not. To measure children's emotional expression, we used a motion depth sensor imaging camera, which recorded ch…
Context matters in myriad ways
Context matters in myriad ways: a reply to ‘Building a cooperative child: evidence and lessons cross-culturally’ by Tanya Broesch and Erin Robbins" published on 02 Nov 2023 by Bristol University Press
Choosing to help others at a cost to oneself elevates preschoolers' body posture
Young children sometimes help others at a cost to themselves, but little is known about the emotional mechanisms underlying this behaviour. Here, 5-year-old children (n = 96, 45 girls, mean age = 5.57 years, SD = 1.79 months, range = 5.19 years to 5.9 years, families recruited from a local database based in a medium-sized German city) were engaged in one task and then asked either to help (child-helps) or watch (child-watches) an adult complete a…
Social reward predicts false belief understanding in Namibian Hai||om children
Social motivation is theorized to promote Theory of Mind development in childhood, but research testing this link is scarce and largely limited to urban middle‐class milieus of the Global North. Here, we investigated the link between social motivation (i.e., social reward responsivity) and Theory of Mind (i.e., false belief understanding) among N = 59 Hai||om children ( Age Range = 2.3–8.0 years) from rural Namibia, an indigenous community where …
Does young children’s interest in categories influence their familiar word–object recognition?
Over the first 2 years, children learn to recognize many familiar objects when hearing its label. Nonetheless, recognition is influenced by factors such as category size, frequency, and salience. Since a child’s individual interests influence word learning , we hypothesized that they might also modulate attention during recognition. Twenty-two- to thirty-nine-month-old typically developing German children’s familiar word–object recognition was me…
Psychology (16 works) · Child and Animal Learning Development (15 works) · Developmental psychology (15 works) · Social Psychology (12 works) · Social Psychology (6 works) · Prosocial behavior (5 works) · Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development (4 works) · Cognitive psychology (4 works) · Neuroendocrine regulation and behavior (4 works) · Child Development and Digital Technology (3 works)