Assessed sympathy and personal distress with facial and physiological indexes (heart rate) as well as self-report indexes and examined the relations of these various indexes to prosocial behavior for children and adults in an easy escape condition. Heart rate deceleration during exposure to the needy others was associated with increased willingness to help. In addition, adults' reports of sympathy, as well as facial sadness and concerned attention, were positively related to their intention to assist. For children, there was some indication that report of positive affect and facial distress were negatively related to prosocial intentions and behavior, whereas facial concern was positively related to the indexes of prosocial behavior. These findings are interpreted as providing additional, convergent support for the notion that sympathy and personal distress are differentially related to prosocial behavior.

Change in prosocial moral reasoning over an 11-year period, gender differences in prosocial reasoning in adolescence, and the interrelations of moral reasoning, prosocial behavior, and empathyrelated emotional responses were examined with longitudinal data and data from adolescents interviewed for the first time. Hedonistic reasoning declined in use until adolescence and then increased somewhat (primarily for boys). Needs-oriented reasoning, direct reciprocity reasoning, and approval and stereotypic reasoning increased until midchildhood or early adolescence and then declined. Several modes of higher level reasoning emerged in late childhood or adolescence. Girls' overall reasoning was higher than boys*. Consistent with expectations, there was some evidence of high level prosocial reasoning being associated with prosocial behavior and empathy and of a relation between sympathy or empathy and prosocial behavior.

We thank Robert B. Cialdini for his comments on a draft and Neal Bechtel, Joseph Campos, and Ernest Lindholm for their advice regarding technical aspects of the study.

The purpose of this study was threefold: (a) to examine change in prosocial moral judgment over a 7-year period, (b) to determine whether there are gender differences in the development of prosocial moral judgment, and (c) to examine the interrelations of moral judgment, affect (empathy), and behavior in middle childhood. Participants were two groups of children who have been followed for 5 and 7 years and two groups of children interviewed for the first time at either ages 9-10 or 11-12. Hedonistic reasoning decreased with age; simple needs-oriented moral judgments increased with age and then leveled off; most other more sophisticated types of reasoning increased in a linear fashion with age. Modes of reasoning that most explicitly reflect role taking or empathy increased in use with age for girls but not for boys. Empathy was positively related to needs-oriented judgments and to higher-level prosocial reasoning and was negatively related to hedonistic reasoning (depending on the age of the children). Empathy was positively related to donating at 11-12 years of age but not at 9-10 years of age. Relations between behavior and reasoning varied depending on the structure and costs of a specific behavior. The results are discussed in relation to theory and research concerning developmental change in moral reasoning and possible mediators of prosocial development.The roles of affect and cognition in morality have been debated frequently. Some psychologists (e.g.. Kohlberg, 1984} have claimed that cognition and rationality are central to morality and that the role of affect is minimal. Others have asserted that affect, especially empathy and sympathy, often functions as a motive for moral behavior (Batson, in press;Hoffman, 1984). In recent work, the role of each has been acknowledged (e.g., Eisenberg, 1986; Hoffman, in press;Staub, 1979).Moral judgment is one type of cognitive process generally viewed as affecting moral behavior, including prosocial behavior (Eisenberg, 1986;Underwood & Moore, 1982). According to a cognitive developmental perspective, the quality of a prosocial action, that is, the maturity of reasoning underlying an act, is believed to change as the individual develops the capacity for higher-level moral judgment; moreover, mature moral judgment is presumed to be somewhat positively associated with quantity of prosocial behavior (Blasi, 1980;Eisenberg, 1986;Underwood & Moore, 1982).Researchers interested in the development of moral reasoning frequently have examined reasoning about moral conflicts in-

The goals of this study were (a) to determine whether we could differentiate between sympathetic and distress reactions using facial and heart-rate markers as well as self-report indices; (b) to examine age and sex differences in markers of the two different modes of affective response; and (c) to examine the relations of questionnaire indices of empathy, parental attitudes toward the expression of emotion, and participants' social presentational concerns to indices of sympathy and distressed responding. Third and sixth graders and adults were induced to experience sympathy and distress with mood induction procedures. Heart-rate change differed across the two inductions, as did facial expressions (for sadness and sympathy, but not distress, facial expressions) and self-reported reactions (especially for females). Females exhibited more facial sympathy and reported more distress than males. The various markers of emotional response generally related predictably to questionnaire indices of empathy. There was some support for the notion that parents who encourage the expression of emotion by their children have children who score high on empathy and are relatively unlikely to experience personal distress in sympathy-evoking contexts.