Development of concern for others.

Abstract

The development of prosocial and reparative behaviors was investigated by examining children's responses to distresses they caused and those they witnessed in others during the 2nd year of life. Prosocial behaviors (help, sharing, provision of comfort) emerged between the ages of 1 and 2, increasing in frequency and variety over this time period. These behaviors were linked to expressions of concern as well as efforts to understand and experience the other's plight. Children's reparative behaviors after they had caused distress also increased with age. Age changes in these early signs of moral development were accompanied by social-cognitive changes in self-recognition. In assessments at age 2, children were most responsive to distress in their mothers but also showed some sensitivity toward unfamiliar persons.

A short-term longitudinal study of correlates and sequelae of attachment security in autism

“…This paradigm had been previously shown to elicit such empathic responses from typically developing infants (Zahn-Waxler, Robinson, & Emde, 1992; Zahn-Waxler & Radke-Yarrow, 1982) as well as children with autism and with intellectual disability (Dawson et al, 2004; Sigman, Kasari, Kwon, & Yirmiya, 1992). Such early-emerging behavioral responses to another person’s distress have been found to be developmentally linked with later expressions of empathy (Hutman & Dapretto, 2009; Zahn-Waxler, Radke-Yarrow, Wagner, & Chapman, 1992) and thus represent a good proximal domain for an initial exploration of the developmental consequences of attachment security in autism. A focus on empathy is further motivated by previous studies indicating that preschool-age children with autism (Dawson et al, 2004; Sigman et al, 1992) as well as infants and toddlers (Charman et al, 1997; Hutman et al, 2010) are less attuned to the displays of distress of others and are less likely to engage in comforting behaviors when compared to typically developing children.…”

You and me: Investigating the role of self-evaluative emotion in preschool prosociality

“…From birth, infants resonate with the emotions of others, reacting to others' distress signals with personal distress (Dondi, Simeon & Caltran, 1999;Geangu, Benga, Stahl & Striano, 2010). As infancy ends, emotional contagion begins to be replaced with other-focused responses (Zahn-Waxler, Radke-Yarrow, Wagner & Chapman, 1992;Svetlova, Nichols & Brownell, 2010). For example, infants as young as 12 months spontaneously help others to retrieve an accidentally displaced object (Liszkowski, Carpenter, Striano & Tomasello, 2006;Warneken &Tomasello, 2006, and 2-year-olds will often attempt to repair harm they have caused (Barrett, Zahn-Waxler & Cole, 1993;Kochanska, Gross, Lin & Nichols, 2002).…”

“…These results imply that socialization plays a role in the appearance of other-focused responses. Links between children's prosocial choices and the cognitive developments identified by Hoffman (1975Hoffman ( , 2000 have also been reported.Positive relationships have been reported between mirror self-recognition and the tendency of 18-to 24-month-olds to help a person in distress (Bischof-Köhler , 1991;Johnson, 1982;Kärtner, Keller, & Chaudhary, 2010;Nichols, Svetlova, and Brownell, 2009;Zahn-Waxler et al, 1992), and inducing self-focus in 3-and 4-year-olds is associated with Self-evaluative emotion and preschool prosociality There is also a large body of work suggesting that a lack of self-control is implicated more generally in anti-social behaviour (de Ridder, Lensvelt-Mulders, Finkenauer, Stok & Baumeister, 2012;Murray & Kochanska, 2002). Contrary to the positive results for selfcontrol, early work often failed to find the predicted association between prosociality and perspective taking ability in children younger than 4 years (Denham, 1986; Iannoti, 1985;Underwood & Moore, 1982).…”

“…If this is the case, one would expect positive associations between preschooler's empathy, selfSelf-evaluative emotion and preschool prosociality 12 evaluation (pride, shame, guilt) and prosociality. To explore this developmental progression, we supplement our measures of self-evaluative emotion and prosociality with observation of children's empathetic concern in response to an injured party (Zahn-Waxler et al, 1992).There is little extant data linking early self-evaluative experiences with empathy. From 5 years, children's guilt and empathy themes in story completion tasks relate to one another (Koenig et al, 2004), and to helping other people (Chapman et al, 1987;Koenig et al, 2004).…”

“…To explore this developmental progression, we supplement our measures of self-evaluative emotion and prosociality with observation of children's empathetic concern in response to an injured party (Zahn-Waxler et al, 1992).…”