Links Among Cognitive Empathy, Theory of Mind, and Affective Perspective Taking by Young Children

Abstract

The authors investigated the development of the affective, cognitive, and behavioral components of empathy in preschoolers, specifically examining how cognitive empathy is linked to theory of mind and affective perspective taking. Participants were 158 children aged 4-6 years. They listened to narratives and then answered questions about the protagonists' emotions. The affective component was probed with the question, "How do you feel seeing the little girl/boy?"; the cognitive component with the question, "Why do you feel [emotion shared with the character]?"; and the behavioral one with the question, "What would you do if you were next to the little boy/girl [experiencing an emotional scenario]?" Results revealed a developmental sequence in the self-focused attribution of cognitive empathy, and a trend toward a developmental sequence for behavioral empathy, which underwent a slight linear increase between 4 and 6 years old. Affective empathy remained stable. More interestingly, they showed that cognitive empathy is linked to both theory of mind and affective perspective taking.

The interaction between embodiment and empathy in facial expression recognition

“…The cognitive aspect of empathy and ToM developed in parallel timeframes, with a link between ToM and the process of automatic mimicry in empathy being supported for decades by psychologists like Harris (1991 , 1992 ) and by philosophers like Goldman (1989) and Gordon (1986) . Recently, in a study involving preschoolers, Bensalah et al , (2016) found that levels of affective empathy did not change with age, whereas levels of cognitive empathy increased with age and were positively correlated to ToM. This finding is compatible with a line of studies that have observed a dysfunction in cognitive empathy in individuals with autism spectrum disorder, while similar findings have not been reported for affective empathy ( Dziobek et al , 2008 ; Baron-Cohen, 2011 ; Mazza et al , 2014 ; Koehne et al , 2016 ).…”

Honesty‐humility and prosocial behavior: The mediating roles of perspective taking and guilt‐proneness

“…From a theoretical perspective, the empathy-altruism hypothesis holds that empathy elicits prosocial motivation, which directly points to an increase in the welfare of people in need of help (Batson et al, 1991). From an empirical perspective, extensive evidence links perspective taking to prosocial behavior (Bensalah, Caillies & Anduze, 2016;Oswald, 2002). Moreover, a meta-analysis revealed a causal influence of perspective taking on altruistic behavior (Underwood & Moore, 1982).…”

Empathy and Theory of Mind in Alzheimer’s Disease: A Meta-analysis

“…Whereas cognitive ToM requires an understanding of another's mental states, affective ToM is concerned with understanding another's emotional state (Heitz et al, 2016). Although conceptually there are differences between affective ToM and cognitive empathy (see, Singer, 2006) at the behavioral level of assessment, these two constructs are difficult to distinguish and their overlap has frequently been noted (e.g., Bensalah, Caillies, & Anduze, 2016;Dodich et al, 2016;Dvash & Shamay-Tsoory, 2014;Moreau et al, 2016;Preckel, Kanske, & Singer, 2018;Shamay-Tsoory, Aharon-Peretz, & Perry, 2009;Shamay-Tsoory et al, 2005). In particular, both affective ToM and cognitive empathy involve understanding another's emotional state.…”