Verbal and Facial Measures of Children′s Emotion and Empathy

Convergence between physiological, facial and verbal self‐report measures of affective empathy in children

“…In the present study, however, children facially displayed sadness, fear and happiness within a non-communicative context, suggesting that facial expressions are not solely communicative. In contrast, there was no single facial expression of anger in any child, a finding that accords with results reported for other samples in which facial display of anger was rare (Strayer, 1989;Chisholm & Strayer, 1995). A plausible hypothesis is that facial expressions of certain emotions are primarily involuntary while others may be primarily communicative.…”

“…A substantial criticism, applying specifically to the self-reports of emotional state, is that the short-story format requires the child's affective state to shift rapidly from story to story, and is thereby inadequate to elicit vicarious responsiveness (Eisenberg & Lennon, 1983). Both self-reports of emotional state and self-report questionnaires appear to be confounded by factors such as the child's cognitive development (Hoffman, 1982), verbal skills (Strayer & Roberts, 1997), conscious awareness of the response (Chisholm & Strayer, 1995) or even the willingness to report this response (Bryant, 1982). Self-report measures are also vulnerable to demand characteristics and social desirability (e.g.…”

“…On the other hand, self-reports involve an interactive process between investigator and the participating child and represent the child's verbally expressed interpretation of his/her conscious affective experience. Such reports can be confounded by verbal (Chisholm & Strayer, 1995) as well as introspective skills (Strayer & Roberts, 1997). Children often find it difficult to identify and describe their feelings with accuracy (Schachter, 1964).…”

Physiologically-Indexed and Self-Perceived Affective Empathy in Conduct-Disordered Children High and Low on Callous-Unemotional Traits

“…However, there are substantial problems inherent in the use of verbal indices, particularly with children. Self-reports appear to be confounded by factors such as the child's cognitive development [16], verbal skills [17], conscious awareness of the response [18] or even the willingness to report this response [8]. Selfreports are further vulnerable to demand characteristics [19] and social desirability [20].…”

Mimicking Expressiveness of Movements by Autistic Children in Game Play

“…There is a lot of evidence that adults and children who do not have ASD will engage in mimicking [13], [14], [15] and we would like to find out whether there is a difference in the mimicking behavior of typically developing and autistic children in a game setting, where expressing emotions and establishing an emotional connection are natural. We initially intended to investigate the differences in unconscious mimicry (Chameleon Effect) by autistic and typically developing children, but there might be an effect of on-purpose mimicry (e.g.…”