Child-care Arrangements Predict Compassion Decades Later in Adulthood

What is it about?

Our findings: We found that center-based care at age 6, especially when combined with home care at age 3, may have beneficial effects on the development of compassion. According to our results, form of early care seems to affect later compassion in an age-specific way. These effects persist long into adulthood. Conducting the study: We examined day care arrangements in 323 Finnish children at age 3 and again at age 6 and followed the same individuals until they were aged 35 years. We compared home care (at child's own home by a relative), family based care (at caregiver's home with maximum of four children), and center-based care (with a group size of 12 - 16 children). Interpreting the results: In interpreting these findings it is important to notice that our sample was quite small and the results should be confirmed in future studies. Futhermore, the quality of center-based care is quite high in Finland, so the results might not directly apply in all other countries.

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Why is it important?

Compassion has many benefits for the individual and also for the society, so it is an important goal to support its development. Some previous studies have shown that narcissistic traits (the opposite to compassion) are rising in the population and it would be important to find ways to counterbalance this trend. So far quite little is known about the factors affecting the development of compassion. To our knowledge this is the first study that has examined effects of day care arrangements to development of compassion.