Despite strong indications of elevated risk of suicidal behavior in lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, limited attention has been given to research, interventions or suicide prevention programs targeting these populations. This article is a culmination of a three-year effort by an expert panel to address the need for better understanding of suicidal behavior and suicide risk in sexual minority populations, and stimulate the development of needed prevention strategies, interventions and policy changes. This article summarizes existing research findings, and makes recommendations for addressing knowledge gaps and applying current knowledge to relevant areas of suicide prevention practice.

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.

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 purposes of this study were threefold: (a) to determine whether physiological (heart rate), facial, and self-report indices could be used to differentiate between different vicariously induced negative emotional states (i.e., those related conceptually to the study of empathy), (b) to examine developmental differences in the degree of differentiation in the aforementioned indices of emotional response, and (c) to assess the pattern of interrelations among heart rate (HR), facial, and self-report indices of response to emotion-eliciting stimuli. Preschoolers and second graders viewed three films that portrayed situations related to others' emotions of anxiety or apprehension, empathic sadness, and cognitively induced sympathy. Children's HR accelerated during the anxiety film and decelerated during the cognitive-sympathy and sad films. Children's nonphysiological reactions also were highly consistent with the film content. The interrelations among modes of responses were generally consistent with the view that the various indices were positively rather than inversely related. There were also some positive relations between the indices of emotion and a questionnaire measure of empathy. The results are discussed in terms of current work concerning empathy and other emotional responses.

No abstract