Facial expressions of emotion are not merely responses indicative of internal states, they are also stimulus patterns that regulate the behavior of others. A series of four studies indicate that, by 12 months of age, human infants seek out and use such facial expressions to disambiguate situations. The deep side of a visual cliff was adjusted to a height that produced no clear avoidance and much referencing of the mother. If a mother posed joy or interest while her infant referenced, most infants crossed the deep side. If a mother posed fear or anger, very few infants crossed. If a mother posed sadness, an intermediate number crossed. These findings are not interpretable as a discrepancy reaction to an odd pose: in the absence of any depth whatsoever, few infants referenced the mother and those who did while the mother was posing fear hesitated but crossed nonetheless. The latter finding suggests that facial expressions regulate behavior most clearly in contexts of uncertainty.

This study examined empathy in 94 monozygotic (MZ) and 90 dizygotic (DZ) twin pairs during the 2nd year of life. Children's reactions to simulations of distress in others were videotaped in home and laboratory settings. Some components of concern for others increased with age between 14 and 20 months for both MZ and DZ twins. Girls scored higher than boys on most of these observational measures. The different components (e.g., emotional concern, prosocial acts, and cognitive exploration) showed substantial coherence and low but significant stability over time. There was modest evidence for heritability of empathy, particularly for the affective component. Maternal reports of prosocial orientations indicated both genetic and environmental influences.This study examines the origins and development of empathy in monozygotic (MZ) and dizygotic (DZ) twins. The study of twins affords unique opportunities for one to examine underpinnings of compassion and connection in social relationships. Heritability or genetic influence can be explored by comparing patterns of concordance of concern for others in MZ and DZ twins. Moreover, the intimacy of the relationship between twins, as it bears on their behaviors toward others in need, can also be examined. Some of these issues have been considered in research with adults and older children (Matthews, Batson, Horn, & Rosenman, 1981; Rushton, Fulker, Neale, Mas, & Eysenck, 1986;Segal, 1984). However, the developmental origins of empathy and altruism in the earliest years of life have not yet been investigated in research with twins.Empathy refers to the experience of others' emotional, physical, or psychological states. It has both cognitive and affective components reflecting the capacity to understand, imagine, and affectively share the other's state. It also may be manifest in prosocial behaviors (e.g., helping, sharing, or comforting) indicative of concern for others. Empathy has a diverse conceptualThe results reported here were made possible by collaboration of a group of investigators, including J. C. DeFries and D. Fulker at the University of Colorado, J. Campos at the University of California at Berkeley, R. Plomin at the Pennsylvania State University, J. Kagan at Harvard University, and J. S. Reznick at Yale University. The study is supported by a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and it also received support from the National Institute of Mental Health.We wish to thank the families who contributed their time to this project. We also wish to thank the research assistants who were involved in data collection, behavioral coding, and data management. Finally, we express our gratitude to Robin Corley for his role in data analysis.

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The MacArthur Story Stem Battery was used to examine maternal and self-representations in neglected, physically abused, sexually abused, and nonmaltreated comparison preschool children. The narratives of maltreated children contained more negative maternal representations and more negative self-representations than did the narratives of nonmaltreated children. Maltreated children also were more controlling with and less responsive to the examiner. In examining the differential impact of maltreatment subtype differences on maternal and self-representations, physically abused children evidenced the most negative maternal representations; they also had more negative self-representations than nonmaltreated children. Sexually abused children manifested more positive self-representations than neglected children. Despite these differences in the nature of maternal and self-representations, physically and sexually abused children both were more controlling and less responsive to the examiner. The investigation adds to the corpus of knowledge regarding disturbances in the self-system functioning of maltreated children and provides support for relations between representational models of self and other and the self-organizing function that these models exert on children's lives.

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