Sympathy through affective perspective taking and its relation to prosocial behavior in toddlers.

Abstract

In most research on the early ontogeny of sympathy, young children are presented with an overtly distressed person and their responses are observed. In the current study, the authors asked whether young children could also sympathize with a person to whom something negative had happened but who was expressing no emotion at all. They showed 18- and 25-month-olds an adult either harming another adult by destroying or taking away her possessions (harm condition) or else doing something similar that did not harm her (neutral condition). The "victim" expressed no emotions in either condition. Nevertheless, in the harm as compared with the neutral condition, children showed more concern and subsequent prosocial behavior toward the victim. Moreover, children's concerned looks during the harmful event were positively correlated with their subsequent prosocial behavior. Very young children can sympathize with a victim even in the absence of overt emotional signals, possibly by some form of affective perspective taking.

Social-Cognitive Contributors to Young Children’s Empathic and Prosocial behavior

“…By at least 18 months of age, toddlers are able to be concerned for a person in a distressing situation but displaying no distress (Vaish et al, 2009). …”

“…We thus conducted a study to assess young children's empathic responses (specifically sympathy) towards a victim who shows no overt distress signals (Vaish, Carpenter, & Tomasello, 2009). For this purpose, we adapted and modified a task developed by Hobson, Harris, García-Pérez, and Hobson (2009).…”

“…Importantly, the "victim" expressed no emotions in either condition, that is, she simply watched the other adult's harmful or harmless actions without displaying any emotional cues. Children viewed four such sympathy situations, during which we coded (1) the pattern of children's looks to the victim (e.g., the duration, latency, and number of looks, as well as the number of trials in which children looked to the victim), and (2) the quality of children's looks to the victim (whether each look was a concerned look or not; see Vaish et al, 2009, for details of the coding scheme).…”

“…After about a minute of individual play, the victim "accidentally" let go of her balloon (which floated to the ceiling), and was then vocally and facially (i.e., overtly) sad. Children's prosocial behavior was coded during the next 2 minutes (see Vaish et al, 2009, for details).…”

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

“…Following Vaish, Carpenter & Tomasello (2009), children were considered to show empathy if they looked concerned whilst witnessing the experimenter's pain (event A), concerned looks were defined as furrowing of the brow and sadness in the eyes. Verbal expressions of empathy (e.g.…”