Fearless kids less kind

LONDON - Pre-school kids who are fearless also show less kindness and more aggressiveness towards peers, a new study says.

“The result of this study shows that fearless behaviour in children can be identified and is related to neurological and genetic predisposition,” says Inbal Kivenson-Baron, doctoral student at the University of Haifa’s Faculty of Education.

Under professor Ofra Mayseless’s supervision, the study set out to examine whether fearless behaviour in children, aged three to four years, is related to specific physiological and social-emotional characteristics, according to a university release.

The study observed 80 kids along with their parents and pre-school teachers.

These children demonstrated higher levels of general aggression — especially tending toward anti-social behaviour such as taking advantage of friends, emotional shallowness and a lack of regret or guilt after doing something socially unacceptable.

An interesting finding in the study was that despite their anti-social tendency, the children who show more fearlessness are quite sociable.

“These children connect with other children, they are friendly. But they find it difficult to identify distress in a friend, and show less interest in helping that friend. It seems that fearless behaviour includes in it both positive and negative aspects,” Kivenson-Baron explained.