This chapter outlines key foci for future research on prosociality and its development. It seeks to identify challenges and priorities and to delineate exciting possibilities for moving the field forward. These include the need for a useful taxonomy to help map the different dimensions and forms of prosociality across development; a call to extend the construct of prosociality by incorporating the perspectives of children and individuals from diverse cultures and backgrounds; the need to integrate knowledge from different levels of analysis; the notion that for a more complete understanding of prosociality in humans, both specificities and commonalities in processes of prosocial development must be addressed; and the need to understand major obstacles to prosocial development – how is it that, despite the human potential for prosociality, some individuals do not become prosocial? – and how to transcend such barriers. Addressing these issues, using rigorous and innovative work, will promote a new era of prosociality science.

This chapter focuses on relational practices of care to nurture prosociality in children and adolescents. We begin by introducing care as an ethical stance toward another that requires attention and commitment to another, as well as sensitivity to the developmental needs and uniqueness of every child. We then outline the practices of relational care, and how they matter for efforts aimed at nurturing children and adolescents’ prosocial orientations. It is argued how recognition of and careful attention to children and adolescents and their ethical development can move humanity forward, and how true commitment to others and an ethical self can contribute to the flourishing of all children. We present examples of nurturing care, including community-based and organizational initiatives as well as existing research-based psychological programs, and we discuss implications for policy. We conclude by outlining next steps for a future agenda of transforming nurturing care for all children and adolescents.

This chapter provides an introduction to the topic of this handbook: prosociality and its development across the first two decades of life, as well as causes, correlates, and consequences across the lifespan. We begin by providing conceptualizations of prosociality and derive an understanding of what prosociality is, and how it is different from related constructs. We then describe core theoretical accounts on prosocial development. Selected historical attempts to understand prosociality in humans are reviewed, along with historical turning points in early theorizing on prosocial development. Last, a brief summary of select mechanisms underlying the development of prosociality is presented.