Assessment of preschoolers' positive empathy: concurrent and longitudinal relations with positive emotion, social competence, and sympathy

Convergence and divergence of empathic concern and empathic happiness in early childhood: Evidence from young infants and children

While most research focused on empathic responses to negative emotions, little is known about empathy to positive emotions. We aimed to bridge this gap by examining infants' and children's empathic responses to distress and happiness, while differentiating between cognitive and emotional empathy. We conducted three studies with N = 119 3-month-old infants; N = 169 10-19 months-old infants; and N = 61 24-60 months-old children (all Jewish-Israeli). Empathy was measured using experimenter simulations (studies 1 and 3) or peer-video (study 2). All studies showed that cognitive empathy to positive and negative emotions converged (small-medium effect size), but not so for emotional empathy. This suggests that understanding others' emotions is independent of emotion valence, while the ability to share in another's emotion is valence-specific.

Callous-Unemotional Traits and Conduct Problems in Children: The Role of Strength and Positive Characteristics

In recent decades, many researchers have focused on the development of Conduct Problems from childhood to adolescence. Understanding behavior problems also requires an understanding of well-regulated characteristics. Focusing our assessment on strengths makes it possible, on the one hand, to help children or adolescents with deficits in important areas (e.g., socio-emotional deficits) to develop emotional regulation skills and adapt their responses to different contexts. This study aims to understand the role of self-competence, self-regulation, empathy, and responsibility (strength variables) in the relationship between Callous Unemotional characteristics and Conduct Problems, with a sample of 236 children aged between 3 and 10 years (M = 7.51, SD = 1.63), through mediation analysis. In general, our findings suggest that self-regulation significantly explains the relationship between the callous dimension of the Inventory of Callous-Unemotional Traits and Conduct Problems, pointing out that this strength variable seems to act as a protective factor against the development of behavior problems. No other mediation effects were found, and these results are considered in light of some limitations.

Activity increases in empathy-related brain regions when children contribute to peers' sadness and happiness

Responding empathically when causing peers' emotions is critical to children's interpersonal functioning, yet there are surprising gaps in the literature. Previous research has focused on empathy when witnessing others' emotions instead of causing others' emotions, on negative emotions instead of positive emotions, and on behavioral correlates instead of neural correlates. In this study, children (N = 38; Mage = 9.28 years; 50% female) completed a functional magnetic resonance imaging block design task in which they played a rigged game where they won and lost coins for themselves or peers and viewed their peers' happiness and sadness. We used a region of interest approach to test whether activity in brain regions associated with positive and negative empathy in adults showed significantly greater activity in each condition (i.e., when children won and lost tokens for themselves and peers) compared with a fixation baseline. We predicted that experiencing self-conscious emotions, such as pride and guilt, would heighten the experience of empathy. Activity in the amygdala, which is associated with visceral arousal, and in the anterior insula and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, which are associated with integrated arousal, increased significantly when winning and losing for oneself and peers and observing their resulting happy and sad facial expressions. Activity did not differ when playing for oneself versus peers, indicating that self-conscious emotions do not heighten empathy and instead support similar neural processes underlying firsthand and secondhand (empathic) emotions. These findings support that empathy during middle childhood involves the same brain regions as empathy during adulthood and that children experience firsthand and secondhand positive and negative emotions in similar ways.

Focusing attention on others' negative emotions reduces the effect of social relationships on children's distributive behaviors

The present study investigates whether directing five- to six-year-old children's attention to hypothetical resource recipients that included familiar and non-familiar people would affect their favoritism toward a familiar person, as reflected in how they allocated resources. In Experiment 1, we instructed participants to give one of several stickers to another person or keep all the stickers for themselves. Under the control conditions, participants more frequently gave stickers to friends than to non-friends. However, when asked about others' emotions, they distributed stickers equally among friends and non-friends. Therefore, focusing on others' thoughts reduced participants' favoritism toward friends. Experiment 2 tested whether focusing on both emotional valences would affect favoritism toward a familiar person, as reflected in children's resource distribution choices. Experiment 2 was identical to Experiment 1, except we asked participants about the other person's emotional valence. When asked about others' negative emotions, participants distributed the stickers equally between themselves and others. However, when asked about others' positive emotions, they distributed more stickers to friends than to non-friends. Neither others' emotional valence nor group status affected the perceived intensity of their emotion or the participant's emotional state. These results suggest that children's favoritism toward friends can be reduced by encouraging them to think about others' negative emotional states.

The "Measure of Empathy in Early Childhood": Psychometric Properties and Associations with Externalizing Problems and Callous Unemotional Traits

Empathy is crucial to the development of socio-emotional skills in youth and empathy development is central to understanding and subtyping youth with externalizing problems. This study explored for the first time the psychometric properties of the Measure of Empathy in Early Childhood (MEEC) in a sample of 652 Italian children aged 6 to 8 years. The gender invariance of MEEC scores and their associations with other measures of empathy and prosocial behavior, and children's externalizing problems and callous-unemotional (CU) traits were also evaluated. Results indicated that with some modifications, a 5-factor structure of the Italian version of MEEC scores fitted the data and was invariant across gender. Results further supported the reliability and validity of MEEC total and subscale scores. Practical implications of these results are discussed.

Boosting interpersonal emotion regulation through facial imitation: functional neuroimaging foundations

Empathic function, which is primarily manifested by facial imitation, is believed to play a pivotal role in interpersonal emotion regulation for mood reinstatement. To explore this association and its neural substrates, we performed a questionnaire survey (study l) to identify the relationship between empathy and interpersonal emotion regulation; and a task-mode fMRI study (study 2) to explore how facial imitation, as a fundamental component of empathic processes, promotes the interpersonal emotion regulation effect. Study 1 showed that affective empathy was positively correlated with interpersonal emotion regulation. Study 2 showed smaller negative emotions in facial imitation interpersonal emotion regulation (subjects imitated experimenter's smile while followed the interpersonal emotion regulation guidance) than in normal interpersonal emotion regulation (subjects followed the interpersonal emotion regulation guidance) and Watch conditions. Mirror neural system (e.g. inferior frontal gyrus and inferior parietal lobe) and empathy network exhibited greater activations in facial imitation interpersonal emotion regulation compared with normal interpersonal emotion regulation condition. Moreover, facial imitation interpersonal emotion regulation compared with normal interpersonal emotion regulation exhibited increased functional coupling from mirror neural system to empathic and affective networks during interpersonal emotion regulation. Furthermore, the connectivity of the right orbital inferior frontal gyrus-rolandic operculum lobe mediated the association between the accuracy of facial imitation and the interpersonal emotion regulation effect. These results show that the interpersonal emotion regulation effect can be enhanced by the target's facial imitation through increased functional coupling from mirror neural system to empathic and affective neural networks.

Evaluating a Social-Emotional Training Program for Refugee Families and Service Providers: Pilot Study

BACKGROUND

Refugee children are often exposed to adversities that present a threat to their healthy development. Promoting refugee children's social-emotional capacities may be an opportune, strengths-based avenue to nurture their resilience, coping strategies, and mental health outcomes amid these risks. Furthermore, supporting caregivers' and service providers' capacities to provide strengths-based care may result in more sustainable, caring environments for refugee children. However, culturally adapted initiatives that aim to promote social-emotional capacities and mental health in refugee children, caregivers, and service providers are limited.

OBJECTIVE

In this pilot study, we aimed to assess the feasibility and efficacy of a brief, 3-week social-emotional training program for refugee caregivers of children aged between 2 and 12 years and service providers who support refugees. This study had 3 central objectives. First, we examined whether refugee caregivers' and service providers' knowledge of core social-emotional concepts increased from pre- to posttraining, whether these increases were maintained 2 months later, and whether caregivers and service providers reported a high use of training-based strategies after the training. Second, we assessed if refugee caregivers reported any improvements in their children's social-emotional capacities and mental health from pre- to posttraining and 2 months later. Finally, we evaluated whether caregivers and service providers experienced any improvements in their own mental health symptoms from pre- to posttraining and 2 months later.

METHODS

A total of 50 Middle Eastern refugee caregivers of children (n=26) aged between 2 and 12 years and service providers (n=24) were recruited using convenience sampling and participated in a 3-week training program. Training sessions were delivered via a web-based learning management system and involved a combination of asynchronous (video-based) and synchronous (web-based live group) sessions. The training was evaluated using an uncontrolled pre-, post-, and 2-month follow-up design. Caregivers and service providers reported their understanding of social-emotional concepts and mental health at pre-, post-, and 2 months after training and reported their use of training strategies after training. Caregivers reported their children's social-emotional capacities and mental health through a presurvey, a series of postsurveys (after each module session and 1 week after the training), and a 2-month follow-up survey. The participants also reported their demographic information.

RESULTS

Caregivers' and service providers' knowledge of social-emotional concepts increased significantly from pre- to posttraining, and the service providers' knowledge increase was sustained at the 2-month follow-up. Both caregivers and service providers reported high levels of strategy use. Furthermore, 2 markers of children's social-emotional development (ie, emotion regulation and sadness over wrongdoing) improved after training.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings highlight the potential of strengths-based, culturally adapted social-emotional initiatives to support refugee caregivers' and service providers' abilities to provide high-quality social-emotional care to refugee children.

Questionnaire Measures of Empathy in Children: A Scoping Review

Children's unique developmental and contextual needs make it challenging to measure empathy validly and reliably. This scoping review is the first to collate currently available information about self-report, other-report, and performance-based questionnaire measures of empathy for children aged up to 11 years. Following the guidelines for Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR; Tricco et al., 2018), a literature search using PsycINFO, Scopus, and Google Scholar identified 24 relevant measures of empathy in children, with publication years spanning 1958 to 2019. Questionnaires could broadly be classified into four groups, according to the extent to which they were developed with children's developmental needs and contexts in mind, and were based on contemporary theory and research findings. There was a distinction between performance-based measures, which elicited children's empathy-related responses to novel content and therefore assessed situational state empathy, and self- and other-report measures, which rated children's general empathic tendencies and thus assessed dispositional trait empathy. Results highlighted the importance of researchers having clarity on their definition of empathy and choosing measures consistent with this, and the merit of utilizing a multimodal assessment approach.

Adaptación y validación de la Escala Disposicional de Empatía Positiva a población adolescente argentina

La empatía positiva implica una expresión de felicidad o alegría, la cual es resultado de comprender la condición emocionalpositiva de otra persona y compartirla. El objetivo de esta investigación fue evaluar las propiedades psicométricas de laadaptación de la Escala Disposicional de Empatía Positiva (Dispositional Positive Empathy Scale) en población adolescenteargentina. El instrumento sobre el cual se realizó la adaptación está compuesto por siete ítems, originalmente en idiomainglés. La muestra (n = 303) estuvo conformada por 95 varones (31%) y 208 mujeres (69%), con edades entre 11 y 17 años,estudiantes de secundaria. Se estudió la validez de constructo realizando un análisis factorial confirmatorio y la invariancia de la escala en relación con el sexo y edad de los participantes. Se comprobó la validez convergente con la conducta prosocial hacia diversos objetivos, las diferencias de los niveles de empatía positiva entre los sexos y en distintos grupos de edad y los niveles de fiabilidad (Ω = .78). Los resultados indican que la escala es unidimensional, coincidiendo con la versión original. Se encontró un buen ajuste del modelo a los datos (cfi = .98; tli = .96; nnfi = .96; nfi = .95; rmsea = .05). El modelo permaneció constante en ambos sexos y grupos de edades. La empatía positiva se relacionó con la prosocialidad y se encontraron diferencias según sexo y edades. Los hallazgos dan cuenta de que las características psicométricas de la adaptación de la Escala Disposicional de Empatía Positiva a población adolescente argentina son satisfactorias.

Synchrony During Online Encounters Affects Social Affiliation and Theory of Mind but Not Empathy

Moving together in time affects human social affiliation and cognition. However, it is unclear whether these effects hold for on-line video meetings and whether they extend to empathy (understanding or sharing others' emotions) and theory of mind (ToM; attribution of mental states to others). 126 young adult participants met through online video in unacquainted pairs. Participants either performed 3 min of synchronous arm movements paced by sounds (n = 40), asynchronous movements (n = 46) or a small talk condition (n = 40). In a subsequent empathy task, participants engaged in a conversation. A video recording of this conversation was played back, and each participant rated, at predetermined time points, how they felt and how they thought their partner felt. From this we calculated empathic accuracy (accuracy of the estimation of the other's emotions) and emotional congruence (emotion sharing). ToM was measured by showing videos of geometrical shapes interacting and asking the participants to describe what happened, measuring the amount of intentionality. We found that participants in the synchrony condition rated feeling greater closeness and similarity to their partners relative to the asynchronous condition. Further, participants in the synchrony group tended to ascribe more intentionality to the abstract shapes than participants in asynchrony condition, suggesting greater ToM. Synchrony and asynchrony groups did not reliably differ in empathic accuracy nor emotional congruence. These results suggest that moving in synchrony has effects on social affiliation measures even in online encounters. These effects extend to ToM tendencies but not empathic accuracy or emotion sharing. These results highlight the potential of synchronous movement in online encounters to affect a subset of social cognition and affiliation measures.

Examining a Conceptual Model of Maternal and Paternal Warmth, Emotion Regulation and Social Competence among Preadolescent Children in Malaysia

Although parental warmth has been shown to be related to children's social competence, the mediating role of preadolescent children's emotion regulation in this context has been less explored, particularly in Asian cultures. Thus, this study examined the role of emotion regulation as a mediator in the relationship between parental warmth (i.e., paternal and maternal warmth) and social competence among preadolescent children in Malaysia. Preadolescent children (N = 720; Mage = 10.95; SD = 0.59; 58.8% female) completed self-administered questionnaires. Results of correlation analysis showed that higher levels of paternal and maternal warmth were associated with greater emotion regulation in preadolescent children and a greater level of social competence. However, analysis of structural equation modeling revealed that emotion regulation significantly mediated only the relationship between maternal warmth and social competence. These findings underscored the importance of maternal warmth in promoting Malaysian preadolescent children's social competence as well as their emotion regulation as a mediating pathway. This study also highlights the direct effect of paternal warmth on preadolescents' social competence. Theoretical and practical implications of this study are discussed.

The Association between Parental Marital Satisfaction and Adolescent Prosocial Behavior in China: A Moderated Serial Mediation Model

Parental marital satisfaction is a well-established protective factor for prosocial behavior in adolescents, yet the parental socialization of adolescent prosocial behavior is limited in Chinese culture. Furthermore, it remains unknown whether the association between parental marital satisfaction and adolescent prosocial behavior is mediated by parent-child intimacy and/or adolescent empathy. The present study examined these associations in 480 students (50.4% male, age = 12.7 ± 0.54 years) and one of their parents. Path analysis (Mplus) revealed that parental marital satisfaction was related to a high level of parent-child intimacy, which was, in turn, associated with a high level of adolescent empathy, which itself predicted adolescent prosocial behavior. The serial mediation effect differed between boys and girls. Specifically, compared with boys, girls' parent-child intimacy was a stronger predictor of their empathy, and empathy had a stronger predictive effect on their prosocial behavior. Several implications for interventions and policies for increasing prosocial behavior in children are suggested.

Association Between Children's Empathy and Depression: The Moderating Role of Social Preference

Although empathy is typically an adaptive characteristic of children, extreme empathy alone or in combination with a negative environment may contribute to a risk of depression. The present study comprehensively investigated the associations between the three constructs of empathy and depression in children, as well as the potential moderating effect of peer relationships (i.e., social preference) on this association. A total of 1223 children (mean age = 10.50 ± .93 years) completed questionnaires on empathy and depression, and social preference was nominated by their peers. Cognitive empathy and positive empathy exerted a positive quadratic effect on depression, while negative empathy had a positive linear association with depression. For children with a low social preference, all three empathy constructs were positively quadratically correlated with depression, extremely high and low empathy were associated with increased depression, and moderate empathy was associated with the lowest level of depression. For children with a high social preference, higher positive empathy was associated with lower depression.

Responding to Positive Emotions at Work - The Four Steps and Potential Benefits of a Validating Response to Coworkers' Positive Experiences

In order to capitalize on positive emotions at work and build high-quality interpersonal relationships and psychological safety, it is important that coworkers respond to each other’s positive emotions in a constructive and validating way. However, despite the importance of symmetrical emotion regulation outcomes, organizational research has largely overlooked how an employee can positively respond to coworkers’ positive emotions. Existing research has concentrated almost exclusively on negative ways of responding, with a particular focus on envy. This article develops a theoretical model of employees’ positive responses to coworkers’ positive emotional experiences, introduced here as a validating response. We identify four steps – noticing, sensemaking, feeling, and acting – and the key mechanisms within each step that enable a responder to react in a validating way. We connect the validating response to important potential individual and organizational outcomes. These outcomes include improved relationship quality and trust, as well as increased positivity and well-being that can result in enhanced learning behavior and collaboration. This article also discusses the connection between a validating response and compassion. We identify them both as parallel affirmative processes that acknowledge a coworker’s emotions, with the former being a response to positive emotion while the latter is a response to negative emotion.

Measures of empathy in children and adolescents: A systematic review of questionnaires

BACKGROUND

Empathy has long been considered a multidimensional construct, encompassing cognitive, affective and behavioral domains. Deficits in empathic competences in early childhood contribute to psychopathology, and have been variably implicated in several clinical conditions, such as autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and conduct disorders.

AIM

To identify and describe empirically validated questionnaires assessing empathy in children and adolescents and to provide a summary of related theoretical perspectives on empathy definitional issues.

METHODS

A systematic review of the literature was conducted. Three bibliographic databases were searched. A total of 47 studies were selected for final analysis and 16 distinct measures were identified and described.

RESULTS

Questionable to excellent levels of internal consistency were observed, while few studies assessed test-retest reliability. Although construct definitions only partially overlapped, affective and cognitive domains of empathy were the commonest internal factors that were often separately evaluated. New facets of the construct (i.e., somatic empathy and sympathy) and specific clinical populations (i.e., ASD) could be specifically addressed through more recent instruments.

CONCLUSION

The combination of different assessment methods is recommended in order to foresee further improvements in this field and try to overcome the problem of limited convergence with more objective measures.

Factors Affecting the Perception of Disability: A Developmental Perspective

Perception of disability is an important construct affecting not only the well-being of individuals with disabilities, but also the moral compass of the society. Negative attitudes toward disability disempower individuals with disabilities and lead to their social exclusion and isolation. By contrast, a healthy society encourages positive attitudes toward individuals with disabilities and promotes social inclusion. The current review explored disability perception in the light of the in-group vs. out-group dichotomy, since individuals with disabilities may be perceived as a special case of out-group. We implemented a developmental approach to study perception of disability from early age into adolescence while exploring cognitive, affective, and behavioral components of children’s attitudes. Potential factors influencing perception of disability were considered at the level of society, family and school environment, and the individual. Better understanding of factors influencing the development of disability perception would allow the design of effective interventions to improve children’s attitudes toward peers with disabilities, reduce intergroup biases, and promote social inclusion. Based on previous research in social and developmental psychology, education, and anthropology, we proposed an integrative model that provides a conceptual framework for understanding the development of disability perception.

Musical Training in the Development of Empathy and Prosocial Behaviors

Music not only regulates mood but also promotes the development and maintenance of empathy and social understanding. Since empathy is crucial for well-being and indispensable in social life, it is necessary to develop strategies to improve empathy and prosocial behaviors. To fulfill this aim, researchers have extensively investigated the effect of intensive musical training on the development of empathy. Here, we first summarize evidence showing the powerful influence of musical training on the development of empathy and then discuss psychological mechanisms responsible for those observations. The conclusions drawn from most previous studies were mainly based on behavioral measurements, while the neural basis of musical training in the development of the empathic brain is still unclear. Fortunately, brain imaging research has contributed greatly to our understanding of the neural underpinnings associated with musical training and its possible connection to the development of the empathic brain. One of the most distinctive signatures of musical training is structural and functional changes of multiple brain regions, and such changes might be related to some of the empathic behaviors observed in musically trained children. Therefore, intensive musical training in childhood may increase levels of empathy, and applied research is required to optimize the training strategy before implementing music education in empathy regulation. Moreover, future longitudinal studies are needed to better understand neural mechanisms underlying the causal effect of musical training on empathy development. These findings have important implications for understanding the development of the empathic brain and for improving prosocial behaviors.

Amplitude of Low-Frequency Fluctuations and Resting-State Functional Connectivity in Trait Positive Empathy: A Resting-State fMRI Study

Positive empathy is the ability to share and understand the positive emotions of others. In recent years, although positive empathy has received more and more attention, trait positive empathy (TPE)-related spontaneous brain activity during the resting state has not been extensively explored. We used the amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations (ALFFs) and resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) of the resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging signal to explore TPE-associated brain regions. We found that higher TPE was associated with higher ALFFs in the right insula and lower ALFFs in the right subgenual cingulate (SGC), right dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC), and right precuneus. RSFC analyses showed that higher functional connectivity between the right insula and left parahippocampal gyrus, left inferior parietal lobule and left middle temporal gyrus were related to higher TPE. Moreover, the connection between the right dmPFC and the left medial orbitofrontal cortex, left middle occipital gyrus and left posterior cingulate cortex were positively related to TPE. Meanwhile, the strength of functional connectivity between the right SGC and left supplementary motor area was positively associated with TPE. These findings may indicate that TPE is linked to emotional (especially the experience of more positive emotions and better negative emotion regulation) and self-referential processing.

Feeling through another's eyes: Perceived gaze direction impacts ERP and behavioural measures of positive and negative affective empathy

Looking at the eyes informs us about the thoughts and emotions of those around us, and impacts our own emotional state. However, it is unknown how perceiving direct and averted gaze impacts our ability to share the gazer's positive and negative emotions, abilities referred to as positive and negative affective empathy. We presented 44 participants with contextual sentences describing positive, negative and neutral events happening to other people (e.g. "Her newborn was saved/killed/fed yesterday afternoon."). These were designed to elicit positive, negative, or little to no empathy, and were followed by direct or averted gaze images of the individuals described. Participants rated their affective empathy for the individual and their own emotional valence on each trial. Event-related potentials time-locked to face-onset and associated with empathy and emotional processing were recorded to investigate whether they were modulated by gaze direction. Relative to averted gaze, direct gaze was associated with increased positive valence in the positive and neutral conditions and with increased positive empathy ratings. A similar pattern was found at the neural level, using robust mass-univariate statistics. The N100, thought to reflect an automatic activation of emotion areas, was modulated by gaze in the affective empathy conditions, with opposite effect directions in positive and negative conditions.. The P200, an ERP component sensitive to positive stimuli, was modulated by gaze direction only in the positive empathy condition. Positive and negative trials were processed similarly at the early N200 processing stage, but later diverged, with only negative trials modulating the EPN, P300 and LPP components. These results suggest that positive and negative affective empathy are associated with distinct time-courses, and that perceived gaze direction uniquely modulates positive empathy, highlighting the importance of studying empathy with face stimuli.

Preschoolers' dynamic respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) change during a challenging parent-child interactive task: Relations with preschoolers' socioemotional health

Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) is a biomarker of physiological functioning that has been implicated in self-regulatory processes and shown to relate to children's socioemotional health. RSA is a dynamic process reflecting an individual's response to their environment; thus, temporally sensitive methods are critical to better understanding this self-regulatory process in different contexts. Prior work has studied young children's RSA change in the context of emotion clips and interactions with a stranger. The present study meaningfully expanded upon this work by examining: (a) preschoolers' dynamic RSA change during a challenging task with their mothers, and (b) factors that may explain variability in children's dynamic RSA change. Preschoolers (N = 108; M_age  = 3.56 years) and their mothers from diverse backgrounds completed a challenging activity together while children's physiological activity was monitored. Mothers reported on children's positive affect, parent emotional support, and family cohesion and indicators of socioemotional health. Children's positive affect and family cohesion explained variability in children's dynamic RSA change, which concurrently related to better socioemotional health. This study advances research and theory on biological correlates implicated in the development of children's self-regulation and furthers our understanding of factors that may support children's developing self-regulation at the physiological level.

Serotonergic sensitivity alleles moderate relations between attachment security at age three and socioemotional competence at age five

Children with higher socioemotional competence are more likely to build constructive relationships with others and experience more positive adjustment outcomes in later periods. Securely attached children are likely to develop better socioemotional competence, but genetic moderation of associations between attachment and later socioemotional competence has received less attention. Using structural equation modeling, this study analyzed data collected from 1,337 children (51% male) born from 1998 to 2000 in the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study. The results demonstrated that relations between attachment security at age 3 years and their social competence at age 5 years differed by two serotonin transporter variants (5-HTTLPR, STin2). Effect sizes of these interactions were larger than effect sizes of main effects and the benefit of having sensitive alleles was consistently supported. This implies that having more secure attachment in the early developmental period is advantageous especially for children with minor alleles who have greater environmental sensitivity.

Shyness and empathy in early childhood: Examining links between feelings of empathy and empathetic behaviours

Although shy children have been described as less empathetic than their more sociable peers, this may be due to a performance rather than a competence deficit. The aim of this study was to explore the moderating role of shyness in the association between empathic feelings and empathic-related reactions. Participants were 212 preschoolers (M_age  = 58.32 months, SD = 10.72). Children provided self-reports of empathetic feelings, parents rated child shyness and empathic behaviours (e.g., reparative behaviours), and teachers assessed indices of socio-emotional functioning (e.g., prosocial behaviours). Results revealed interaction effects between empathic feelings and shyness in the prediction of outcome variables. Among children with lower levels of shyness, empathy rated by children was positively related to empathetic and reparative behaviours (rated by parents) and prosocial behaviours (rated by teachers). At higher levels of shyness, these relations were attenuated. These results can be interpreted to suggest that although shy children may not differ from their more sociable counterparts in experiencing empathy, they seem to be less likely to act empathically.

Emotion regulation: A treatment target for autism spectrum disorder

Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) tend to experience difficulties with emotion regulation (ER). Treatments designed to address ER difficulties in individuals with ASD are emerging. The authors review cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and mindfulness-based treatments that have focused on ER difficulties in youth and young adults with ASD. In general, these treatments addressing ER skills have included awareness of emotions/psychoeducation about emotions, frustration tolerance, and ER skills, as well as practice and use of these skills during group therapy that sometimes includes caregivers. The results from these interventions are encouraging for individuals with high-functioning ASD because ER skills tend to improve following treatment. The inclusion of ER in other ASD treatments is discussed.

A Relational Framework for Integrating the Study of Empathy in Children and Adults

The development of empathy is central to positive social adjustment. However, issues remain with integrating empathy research conducted with children, adolescents, and adults. The current article (a) provides an overview of how empathy is typically conceptualized and measured in child development and adult research, (b) describes outstanding issues concerning child development and adult research on empathy, and (c) outlines how a relational approach can provide clarity regarding how empathy develops over the course of development. We conclude by offering suggestions for future research on the development of empathy across the lifespan.

A Social Analgesic? Acetaminophen (Paracetamol) Reduces Positive Empathy

Acetaminophen – a potent physical painkiller that also reduces empathy for other people’s suffering – blunts physical and social pain by reducing activation in brain areas (i.e. anterior insula and anterior cingulate) thought to be related to emotional awareness and motivation. Some neuroimaging research on positive empathy (i.e., the perception and sharing of positive affect in other people) suggests that the experience of positive empathy also recruits these paralimbic cortical brain areas. We thus hypothesized that acetaminophen may also impair affective processes related to the experience of positive empathy. We tested this hypothesis in a double-blind, placebo-controlled experiment. Specifically, we administered 1,000 mg acetaminophen or a placebo and measured effects on different measures of positive empathy while participants read scenarios about the uplifting experiences of other people. Results showed that acetaminophen reduced personal pleasure and other-directed empathic feelings in response to these scenarios. In contrast, effects on perceived positivity of the described experiences or perceived pleasure in scenario protagonists were not significant. These findings suggest that (1) acetaminophen reduces affective reactivity to other people’s positive experiences and (2) the experience of physical pain and positive empathy may have a more similar neurochemical basis than previously assumed. Because the experience of positive empathy is related to prosocial behavior, our findings also raise questions about the societal impact of excessive acetaminophen consumption.

Longitudinal Association Between Children's Callous-Unemotional Traits and Social Competence: Child Executive Function and Maternal Warmth as Moderators

This study examined the longitudinal association between children's early callous-unemotional (CU) traits and social competence in the transition to school-age, and tested whether this relationship was moderated by child executive function and maternal warmth. Participants were 643 children (49% girls) who were part of the Panel Study on Korean Children (PSKC) of the Korea Institute of Child Care and Education (KICCE). Mothers rated children's CU at 5 years and executive function at 8 years, and maternal warmth at 5 years. Teachers reported on children's social competence at 8 years. Results of the model including child executive function as the moderator indicated that deficits in child executive function and child sex (boys) predicted lower social competence. In addition, the moderating effect of executive function on the relationship between CU and social competence approached a trend such that CU predicted lower social competence only for children with lower executive function. In the model that included maternal warmth as a moderator, CU traits was associated with lower social competence, and this effect was more pronounced for boys as indicated by a significant effects of CU × child sex on social competence. The findings are discussed with respect to considering individual and contextual factors by which early CU becomes associated with individual differences in children's social competence.

Crying babies, empathic toddlers, responsive mothers and fathers: Exploring parent-toddler interactions in an empathy paradigm

The ability to display caring responses to another child's distress is a key aspect of early empathy that is facilitated by parental socialization. However, existing studies typically involve lab settings and focus on toddlers' unsupported responses to adult simulations of distress, raising questions about their ecological validity. Framed within the New Fathers and Mothers Study, the current study involved 156 British toddlers (M_age = 24.35 months, SD = 0.73) who were filmed at home with either their mother or father (87 mothers and 69 fathers) in a novel paradigm involving a lifelike crying baby doll. Capitalizing on the inclusion of both fathers and mothers, a key question concerned effects of parent-toddler dyad gender composition on both global ratings of toddlers' displays of empathic concern and more specific indicators, including toddlers' attentional, emotional, and behavioral responses. Whereas parental responses did not differ by either child or parent gender and appeared to be closely attuned to child behavior, toddlers' responses showed effects of both (a) child gender, evident in higher rates of emotion labeling in girls than in boys (even when controlling for language ability), and (b) parent gender, evident in higher levels of empathic concern for girls observed with fathers than for those observed with mothers. These findings are discussed within the context of empathy development and parental socialization.

Balance in Positive Emotional Expressivity Across School Contexts Relates to Kindergarteners' Adjustment

Positive emotional expressivity has been associated with increased social competence and decreased maladjustment in childhood. However, a few researchers have found null or even positive associations between positive emotional expressivity and maladjustment, which suggests that there may be nuanced associations of positive expressivity, perhaps as a function of the social context in which it is expressed. We examined whether observed positive emotional expressivity balance across peer-oriented/recreational and learning contexts predicted kindergarten children's adjustment (N = 301).

RESEARCH FINDINGS

Higher positive expressivity during lunch/recess compared to positive expressivity in the classroom was associated with lower teacher-student conflict, externalizing behaviors, and depressive symptoms. In addition, overall positive emotional expressivity predicted lower externalizing behaviors as well as lower depressive and anxiety symptoms.

PRACTICE OR POLICY

The results suggest the importance of assessing observed positive emotional expressivity in context as a potential indicator of children's maladjustment risk and the need for children to adapt their emotions to different contexts. Implications for assessing and supporting positive emotional expression balance and training emotional regulation in school are discussed.

Empathic Responses to Mother's Emotions Predict Internalizing Problems in Children of Depressed Mothers

Recent theories posit that empathy, typically an adaptive characteristic, may be associated with internalizing problems when children are chronically exposed to mother's depression. We tested this postulation in a sample of children (N = 82, M age = 5 years). Children witnessed their mothers express sadness, anger, and happiness during a simulated phone conversation, and researchers rated children's negative affective empathy, positive affective empathy, and information-seeking (cognitive empathy) in response to their mother's emotions. The chronicity of mother's depression during the child's lifetime moderated associations between children's empathy and internalizing problems. As predicted, all three empathy measures were related to greater mother-rated internalizing problems in children of chronically (i.e., 2-3 years) depressed mothers. Greater positive empathy was related to lower internalizing problems in children of nondepressed mothers. Positive empathy may contribute to adaptive processes when mothers are not depressed, and positive, negative, and cognitive empathy may contribute to maladaptive processes when mothers are chronically depressed.

The relationship between trait positive empathy and brain structure: a voxel-based morphometry study

Although studies relating to positive empathy have received increased attention in recent years, no studies have been carried out to explore the neural basis of positive empathy. Using a voxel-based morphometry analysis, this study investigates the relationship between trait positive empathy (as measured by the Positive Empathy Scale) and its association with brain structure in 86 healthy college students. The results indicate that an individual's ability to show positive empathy is positively correlated with the volume of gray matter in the right insula, left anterior cingulate cortex, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and medial prefrontal cortex. It may be suggested that the differences between the abilities of emotion processing and regulating play important roles in shaping an individual's positive empathy traits from the perspective of brain morphometry.

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

Self-evaluative emotions depend on internalized social standards and motivate social action. However, there is a lack of empirical research documenting the impact of self-evaluative emotion on 3- and 4-year-olds' prosociality. Extant research relates children's experiences of guilt to empathetic concern and making amends. However, the relationship between guilt and both concern and making amends is potentially reductive. Empathetic concern involves similar bodily expressions to guilt, and amend making is used to distinguish guilt from shame in children. This is the first study to relate the development of both positive and negative self-evaluative emotions to empathetic concern and prosocial choice (making amends and spontaneous help). Results confirm that the broad capacity for self-evaluative emotion is established during the preschool years and relates to empathetic concern. Moreover, these social emotions can be used to predict prosocial choice. Making amends was best predicted by empathetic concern and by children's responses to achievement (pride following success and lack of shame following failure). Alongside moral pride, pride in response to achievement and resilience to shame was also the best predictor of spontaneous help. The data support the idea that young children's prosocial choices may be partially driven by the affective drive to maintain an "ideal" self. Psychologists have emphasized that in order to be adaptive, self-evaluative emotion should be guilt oriented rather than shame oriented. However, the adaptive role of pride has been neglected. We call on future research to redress the focus on negative self-evaluation in moral development and further explore the prosocial potential of pride.

The effects of a three-year integrated Olympic education programme on adolescents' prosocial behaviours

The concept of Olympic education and its use of moral education to shape the development of personality have received insufficient empirical support. The aim of this study was to examine the effects of an integrated Olympic education programme on the development of prosocial behaviour in adolescents. A natural experimental research design was applied in this study. The pre-test sample included 411 adolescents (aged 13-14) who were randomly selected from schools that had begun to apply an integrated Olympic education programme, along with 430 adolescents from schools without an Olympic education programme. The post-test sample included 381 students from schools implementing the Olympic education programme and 402 students from schools without an Olympic education programme. The revised prosocial tendencies measure was administered to the participants at pre- and post-test time points to assess changes in prosocial behaviour and specifically on six types of prosocial behaviour: public, anonymous, dire, emotional, compliant, and altruistic. The analyses showed significant improvements in prosocial behaviour in adolescents from schools that had implemented an integrated Olympic education programme. Changes in prosocial behaviour following the implementation of an integrated Olympic education programme were observed for the compliant, altruistic, and dire types of prosocial behaviour. In conclusion, these findings suggest that an integrated Olympic education programme effectively encourages prosocial behaviour in adolescents. This study expands our understanding of the efficiency of implementing an Olympic education programme in schools. We suggest that future research should investigate the behavioural changes in students of different ages from perspective of both teachers and students.

The Mind and Heart of the Social Child: Developing the Empathy and Theory of Mind Scale

Empathy and theory of mind (ToM) are distinctive psychological constructs in predicting children’s social functioning. This study provided evidence of the independent nature of these constructs and developed a parent questionnaire for measuring individual differences in children’s empathy and ToM. In Study 1, exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis based on responses of 116 parents of Hong Kong children established a three-factor structure of the Empathy and Theory of Mind Scale (EToMS), that is, Empathy, Nice ToM, and Nasty ToM. An additional 189 parents of Study 2 confirmed this three-factor model. A subsample of 93 children (M=4.97, SD = .84, 47 boys) from Study 2 took part in child measures of helping and lying behaviors as well as false belief understanding. The results supported the reliability and validity of the EToMS, making it a useful assessment of children’s social predispositions.

Adolescents' emotional engagement in friends' problems and joys: Associations of empathetic distress and empathetic joy with friendship quality, depression, and anxiety

Although empathetic distress (i.e., taking on a friend's emotional distress as one's own) has been examined as a "cost of caring" especially common among girls, relations with adjustment remain untested. The current study tested associations of empathetic distress with friendship quality, depression, and anxiety. Adolescents (N = 300, ages 12-18) reported on their perceived experience of empathetic distress following a conversation with a friend about problems. The study also considered youths' emotional engagement in friends' positive life events, referred to as empathetic joy. Results indicated that girls reported greater empathetic distress and empathetic joy compared with boys. Findings also suggest that although empathetic distress may have positive implications for youths' friendship adjustment, this may come at the expense of emotional well-being. In contrast, empathetic joy was associated with greater positive friendship quality and fewer internalizing symptoms.

Research on Positive Indicators for Teacher-Child Relationship in Children with Intellectual Disabilities

Teacher-child relationships (TCRs) are important factors in socio-emotional development and academic and behavioural outcomes. In Japan, occupational therapists (OTs) work with teachers and children with intellectual disabilities (ID) in school environment considering TCRs. This study aimed to identify positive indicators in TCRs among children with ID. We conducted interviews with 23 Japanese preschool teachers working with children with ID in child development support centres (CDSCs) and used the Delphi method to evaluate and select positive indicators. We obtained 49 positive indicators belonging to 15 conceptual indicators related to TCRs. The indicators that reached a high degree of agreement and consensus seems to be related to more fundamental social interaction aspects. These indicators could be used to enhance collaboration between OTs and teachers in the school environment, including CDSCs. We could not examine differences of positive social aspects depending on diagnostic features. It will be important for future work to examine differences in positive social aspects among children with other diagnostic features. Our findings could contribute to the development of an assessment tool to evaluate positive aspects of teacher-child interactions and their progress.

Positive Empathy and Prosocial Behavior: A Neglected Link

Empathy facilitates everyday social interactions and has often been linked in the literature to prosocial behavior. Robust evidence has been found for a positive relationship between experiencing empathy and behaving prosocially. However, empathy, and the empathy–prosocial behavior relationship in particular, has been studied mostly in combination with negative emotions. Less research has been conducted on empathy for positive emotions, and the link between positive empathy and displayed prosocial behavior has not been intensively investigated so far. The purpose of the present article is thus twofold: first, we review and summarize research evidence on empathy for positive emotions, and second, we propose that people’s motivation to maintain an experienced positive affect is a viable mechanism linking positive empathy and prosocial behavior.

Positive Psychological Interventions in Counseling

Counseling psychologists are in a prime position to claim preeminence in the field of applied positive psychology. A number of misunderstandings or misconceptions of positive psychology seem to interfere, however, with the focus (or lack thereof) that has been placed upon training counseling psychologists to utilize and contribute to positive psychological scholarship and applications. In this article, the most commonly reported misconceptions are addressed, and foundational information regarding positive psychological constructs, theories, and processes most relevant to the applied work of counseling psychologists is reviewed. Counseling psychologists are encouraged to claim positive psychology as the logical extension of our humanistic roots and to consider how to both utilize and contribute to the growing body of positive psychological scholarship.

The development of sympathy from 5 to 7 years: increase, decline or stability? A longitudinal study

In the present study the development of sympathy in a group of 85 children (43 girls) was investigated over a 3-year period, starting with the last year of child care, when the children were 5 years-old. Sympathy was measured via different measures: two standardized observations, where the children were observed as they witnessed the distress of a puppet in two different situations; two follow-up interviews with the children immediately after the observations; a self-report questionnaire and two other-report questionnaires by parents and teachers. At all three periods the observations and the children’s self-reports (interviews, questionnaire) were intercorrelated. The teachers’ and the parents’ reports were not significantly correlated with any of the other measures at time 1. At times 2 and 3, a few low but significant correlations emerged. As a consequence, the other reports were dropped from further analyses and a composed sympathy measure consisting of observations and self-reports was created. Rank-order stability of this composed measure over the course of the 3 years proved to be high; suggesting that interindividual differences maintained stability. Mean-level differences showed a significant increase over the course of the study with the highest increase in the initial 2 years. Neither gender nor the interaction between gender and time were significant. In conclusion, the measurement of sympathy has proven valid for the childrens’ observations and self-reports. To the question of age-correlated development, stability in sympathy is firstly high and secondly sympathy increases mainly during the time between the last year in child care and the first year in elementary school.

Emotion understanding and reconciliation in overt and relational conflict scenarios among preschoolers

This study examined emotion understanding and reconciliation in 47 (24 girls) 4–6-year-old preschool children. Participants first completed emotion recognition tasks and then answered questions regarding reconciliation tendencies and affective perspective-taking in a series of overt and relational aggressive conflict scenarios. Children’s teachers reported their overt aggression, relational aggression, and prosocial behaviors in daily life. The results indicated that children’s emotion recognition ability was associated with their reconciliation tendency in both types of conflict scenarios. Furthermore, children’s affective perspective-taking in conflicts was associated with their reconciliation tendencies in the overt aggression conflict scenarios, but not in the relational aggression conflict scenarios. Additionally, we found that children’s affective perspective-taking in overt aggression conflict scenarios was associated with their daily prosocial behaviors. The results suggest that the ability of detecting and recognizing others’ emotions may facilitate conflict reconciliation and positive peer interactions.

Gender differences in emotion expression in children: a meta-analytic review

Emotion expression is an important feature of healthy child development that has been found to show gender differences. However, there has been no empirical review of the literature on gender and facial, vocal, and behavioral expressions of different types of emotions in children. The present study constitutes a comprehensive meta-analytic review of gender differences and moderators of differences in emotion expression from infancy through adolescence. We analyzed 555 effect sizes from 166 studies with a total of 21,709 participants. Significant but very small gender differences were found overall, with girls showing more positive emotions (g = -.08) and internalizing emotions (e.g., sadness, anxiety, sympathy; g = -.10) than boys, and boys showing more externalizing emotions (e.g., anger; g = .09) than girls. Notably, gender differences were moderated by age, interpersonal context, and task valence, underscoring the importance of contextual factors in gender differences. Gender differences in positive emotions were more pronounced with increasing age, with girls showing more positive emotions than boys in middle childhood (g = -.20) and adolescence (g = -.28). Boys showed more externalizing emotions than girls at toddler/preschool age (g = .17) and middle childhood (g = .13) and fewer externalizing emotions than girls in adolescence (g = -.27). Gender differences were less pronounced with parents and were more pronounced with unfamiliar adults (for positive emotions) and with peers/when alone (for externalizing emotions). Our findings of gender differences in emotion expression in specific contexts have important implications for gender differences in children's healthy and maladaptive development.