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Feeling and Thinking of Others: Affective and Cognitive Empathy and Emotion Comprehension in Prosocial/Hostile Preschoolers
Author(s) -
Belacchi Carmen,
Farina Eleonora
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
aggressive behavior
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.223
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 1098-2337
pISSN - 0096-140X
DOI - 10.1002/ab.21415
Subject(s) - empathy , prosocial behavior , psychology , feeling , cognition , comprehension , developmental psychology , social psychology , linguistics , philosophy , neuroscience
This study aims at investigating the affective and cognitive components of empathy in relation to both emotion comprehension and prosocial/hostile behaviors in preschoolers. A total of 219 children (54% boys; aged between 3 and 6: mean age 4.10) and 20 teachers (two for each class: group A and group B ) took part in this research. Pupils’ empathy and hostile/prosocial roles were assessed by teacher reports [ B elacchi and F arina, 2010] and children's emotion comprehension by a nonverbal test [ T est of E motion C omprehension: P ons and H arris, 2000; adapted by A lbanese and M olina; 2008]. As expected, the results showed a significant influence of gender, with girls being more empathic than boys, according to all of the teachers’ perception. Contrary to our expectations, no systematic age influence emerged. Regarding the relations of children's emotion comprehension with both empathy measures and their prosocial/hostile attitudes, we have found: (1) a low significant relation with the total empathy measure, according to all the teachers, but with the cognitive empathy only according to teachers B; (2) a robust negative relationship of both affective and cognitive empathy with Hostile roles and with Outsider role, contrary to a positive correlation of only affective empathy with Prosocial roles. No relationships emerged between empathy measures and Victim role.