DEV LECTURE 21: SOCIO-EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT 2 - EMPATHY

What happens when children view something distressing but are not in a situation to act? -- passive paradigm - emotional elicitsation paradigm explain - RESULTS?

- 6 years old - over the age of 5 have a well developped understanding and whne indivudal differences become evident RESULTS - looking at affective empathy (facial expressions) - children classified into one of three groups: --inexpressive: no instances of expression (n=45 MAJORITY) **doesnt mean theyre cold --concern: worry and concern (n=34) --sad: distinct negative emotion (n=34)

STUDY -- empathy in the absence of emotional input cont - what 3 thinfs were we looking at in the kids? - what did they find? - conclusion?

- How much does a child look at the experimenter? -how much conern does the child show on their face? - how much did they share? RESULTS - for both concern and checking in : the hostile condition showed more than in the neutral condition - children in the harm condition were significantly more likelyto be the most prosocial (share more ballons) (equality split through age groups and gender) CONCLUSION: - 18 and 25 month old have cognitive empathy --> they can interpret situations and understand someone else would feel a certain way and change their behaviour accorfingly

emotional elicitsation paradigm STUDY CONT'D -- what did they find in regards to emotioanl regualtion and behvauour in the classroom?

- inexpresive children were the better regualated and more socially capable in the class (better at making friends etc.) - children who disengaged from the challenging vignettes most (fidning it aversive and too much to handle) and the ones who expressed worry/concern (self focused) were more likely to be rated as less socially maturea dn higher levels of problem behaviour **the social emotional meturioty/ ability children can regualte their emotions is related even early on to broader more complex things (ability to have stable relationships ect)

4 conclusions about empathy

- start to see manipulation, hurting others feelings ect -- its cuz thy have the cognitive ability - they do it cuz they understand how to. a developmental milestone

summary -- some examples from past paradigms

- that expression of concern is also related to their subsequetn behaviour (emotional response linked to behabiour()? -- by 18 months old, theres some evidence that everything is startign to come together --> their own repsosne, concern and behaviour as a result of that

emotional elicitsation paradigm STUDY CONT'D -- what did they find there was a relationship between?

- theres a relationship between the affect resposne and the physiological repsonding ---exoressions of sadness and worry increase in phsyiolical symptoms and then slows down ---heartrates were overall getting faster and slowing down ---the inexpressicve children had overall slower heart rates, and more regualted arousl (physiological resposne)******

empathy -- what are its physiological manifestations? (2) - what do eisenburg and colleges postulate ?

- they are complicated (heart rate, skin conductance ect) - useful in that they are objective -- no coding required - there is a contin uity between the observational data and the physioloigcal measures which is good - cuz ur coding the behvaioural data -- argue that: -children who are poorly modulate (over aroused) more likely to show personal distress - well modulated arousal ur more likely to show sympathitic responses (ex. well modulated arousal -- soccer team won and then quickly switched to a really well modulated sympathetic response of comofrting the other team ----> improtance of role models - learned not thatnthey learned to be empathic form adult soccer players but they learned HOW to be empathic -- a learned behaviour )

how may a 2 year old repsond to a woman cutting an onion - why?

- we knwo shes crying cuz shes cutting onions - an 18m/2year old may go give her a hug -thye recognize the emtoion but they cant rlly appreciate why its happening -- as soon as they can express concern for others/an empathic response - still might not get it quite right

babies have cognitive empathy, their sympathy and facial signs of concern for the victim ass increase the likelihood for procosial behaviour by what age???

18 months

- egocentric empahty --when? --what is it? - empathy for anothers feelings --when? --what? - empathy for anothers general plight - when? what?

1. egocentric --not good at understanding difference between self and others - dont have a good idea of inner states (need a representation of what that is) 2. empathy for anothers feelings -- by 3years theyre starting to be able to perspective take --better at empathic overtures - responding in the proper way 3. empathy for anothers general plight - by 5-7 have an idea that a person is conituous - might have a differnt history to them - proper theory of mind at 3-4years

when do we sytart to see active interventions (bringing object to person ect)

18 months

-at 10-12 months what does empathy look like? -- their response to distress? -- ___% show some distress themeslves - at 12-24months what does empathy look like? - from 24 months?

10-12m - often unresponsive to distress or "watching" - 50% of the time show some distress themselves 12-24m - fewer signs of personal distress -- higher understanding = less distress - an awareness comes on board - active intervention increase: -- apporach and touch person in distress -- from around 18 months: bringing objects to distress person; seeking help or protecting distresssed person 24 month + - children often respond to distress, regardless of their role in creating it - there are considerbale individual differences

when do we start to see individual differences in socioemotional deelopment (empathy)

2 years

difference between empathy, sympathy and personal distress in terms of the exam example

Empathy: you fail, your friend passes - you feel happy seeing your friend happy with their mark despite feeling bad that you failed Sympathy: you pass, your friend fails but pretends they are happy and don't care - you feel sad for your friend Personal distress: you pass, your friend fails - the idea of failing scares and upsets you

STUDY -- empathy in the absence of emotional input -- SET UP EXPLAINED

PHASE 1: Children watching a real life scenariao - one experiemnter witha variety of objects in front of them - she uses one of those object and makes a bifg deal out of it - dont interact with other object ---communicating thay one is her special object PHASE 2: -2 conditions: --hostile: other experiementer damage/destroy the item the person was playign with --neutral: other experiemnter damages destroys one of the other toys ***critical: experimenter 1 expresses a neutral expression PHASE 3: - infantis given baloona to play with - were looking at how prosocial theyre gonna be with the experiemnter **if the child has an undertanding that what happened would hurt the persons feelings they would give the experiemnter more balloons (more ballons for condition 1)

--how do you test empathy in an infant? --You want to test the infant's...(2) --what do u need? --How do you code the responses?

You want to test the infant's • affective response • behavioural response (have to think about mobility) You need a scenario or two? - hurt/lost teddy/purely affective • Real life? • Actors? • Puppets? (ethics) How do you code the responses? • Empathy/sympathy/personal distress • Scale of response

what is sympathy? - incvolves ______motivations and probabily originates with...

an affective response that consists of feeling sorrow or concern for the distressed or needy other (not merely the same emotional response as in empahty or emotional conatagion - symptahy requires a negative feeling -- empathy cna be happy) - involves other-oriented altruistic motivations and probably originates with empathic responding in many situations

What is empathy? - eisenberg defintion - requires... - to be contrasted with...

an affective response that stems from the apprehension or comprehension of anothers emotional state or condition and that is identical or very similar to what the other person is feeking or would be expected to feel - to feel empathy requires at least some differentiation of ones own and anothers emotional state or condtiion ( - to be contrasted with EMOTION CONTAGION: which does involve differentiation

can children figure out that someone else is distressed and show empathy even if they dont see something distressing or upsetting? -- what is this called

cognitive empathy -- ex. ur in a class and 2 kids are messing about poking eachother - eventually one goes hey stopit - other gets in trouble --> even if that child shows no emotion - cognitive mepthay means u understand that because of that situation that child may feel angry, sad -- about understanding why someone may feel a certain way not just recogniuzing it

what is personal distress? - stems from... -involves _____ motivations

self focused, aversive emotional reaction to another persons demotion or condition (eg. discomfort, anxiety) - also probably stems from empathic resboding but involves an "egoistic" motivation to alleviate ones own distress rather than the others

hoffmans view on empathy ***how people experience empathy depends on......

the idea of the self -other differentiation is not there from birth --comes around age of 2 -- before that age they cant distinguish between their own emotions and others (if theyre happy, couldnt understand why other would be sad) ***how people experience empathy depends on how they cognize others