Beyond empathy: Cognitive capabilities increase or curb altruism in middle childhood.

Altruistic behavior, which intentionally benefits a recipient without expectation of a reward or at a cost to the actor, is observed throughout the lifespan from everyday interactions to emergency situations. Empathy has long been considered a major driver of altruistic action, but the social information processing model supports the idea that other cognitive processes may also play a role in altruistic intention and behavior. Our aim was to investigate how visual analysis, attention, inhibitory control, and theory of mind capabilities uniquely contribute to predicting altruistic intention and behavior in a sample of 67 French children (35 girls and 32 boys; M = 9.