Empathy and responsibility in the motivation of children's helping.

To investigate affective and dispositional factors in the motivation of children's helping, 60 children ranging from preschool to sixth grade were observed in laboratory distress incidents involving, as potential recipients of aid, a kitten, an adult experimenter, and a mother with an infant. Positive, negative, and neutral affect expressions were observed in two of the three distress incidents, and prosocial dispositions were assessed through children's attributions regarding the motives and feelings of characters in eight stories involving persons in distress. Results indicated that helping tended to be positively correlated with positive affect and negatively correlated with negative and neutral affect. Further evidence suggested that these correlations were primarily attributable to positive affects associated with helping itself rather than to affects experienced in witnessing the other's distress. Among story attributions, attributions of guilt were strongly and consistently related to helping and affect expression in the total sample and across grade groupings. Attributions of empathy and altruism were also related to helping, but only in the total sample. These results are interpreted as suggesting that it may not be empathic arousal alone that is most important for the motivation of helping, but the subjective meaning of that arousal in terms of an accompanying sense of responsibility for the other person's plight. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Expressive control during a disappointment: Variations related to preschoolers' behavior problems.

Individual differences in expressive control during a disappointment were examined in relation to preschool boys' and girls' concurrent behavior and to their risk for developing disruptive behavior disorders. A disappointment paradigm was used to examine expressive control in 79 4- and 5-yr-old children with low, moderate, or high risk. Boys at risk showed more negative emotion in the experimenter's (E's) presence than low-risk boys. In E's absence, low-risk boys' negative emotion was equivalent to at-risk boys'. Boys' negative emotion, particularly anger, predicted their disruptiveness during the disappointment and general symptoms of oppositionality. At-risk girls differed from low-risk girls after E left, displaying less negative emotion than low-risk girls. Girls' minimization of negative emotion predicted attention deficit and conduct disorder symptoms. Gender-specific expressive control is discussed in terms of gender differences in emotion regulation and psychopathology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Individual differences in emotion regulation and behavior problems in preschool children.

Emotion regulation (ER) was assessed during a negative mood induction in 79 preschoolers who varied in degree of behavior problems. Facial expressivity during the induction was used to identify 3 ER groups: inexpressive, modulated expressive, and highly expressive. Group differences in ER were significantly related to heart rate and skin conductance. Inexpressive preschoolers had the highest heart rate, lowest vagal tone, and smallest autonomic nervous system (ANS) change during the induction. Highly expressive preschoolers had the slowest heart rate, highest vagal tone, and largest ANS change. The inexpressive and highly expressive groups had more externalizing symptoms than the modulated group at preschool age and at follow-up at the end of 1st grade. Inexpressive preschoolers appeared to have more depressed and anxious symptoms at follow-up. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Introduction to special section: Parental depression and distress: Implications for development in infancy, childhood, and adolescence.

Five years ago, a special section on "Developmental Psychopathology in Children of Depressed Mothers" was published in this journal (see Vol. 26, pp. 3-67). The present special section deals also with this topic and includes seven empirical articles. It is the product of several successful journal submissions that occurred in relatively close succession. The articles were not specifically targeted beforehand to be broadly representative of research in this domain. Work from some other excellent research programs is not included. Thus, although the content of this special section cannot be viewed as a comprehensive cross-section of current research directions, it does provide an occasion for readers to begin to assess continuities and changes in this research domain. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Editor’s introduction to the APA centennial series.

Nineteen ninety-two is the 100th anniversary of the founding of American Psychological Association. To mark this occasion, Developmental Psychology will publish a series of articles during the year that examine the contributions of our intellectual forebears. The major goals of these articles are to articulate the ways in which these theorists have influenced our current theory and research in the field of developmental psychology and to provide an assessment of their contribution to our field in light of our current knowledge. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Patterns of guilt in children of depressed and well mothers.

Expressions of guilt were examined in 87 children, 5–9 years old, in a psychiatric interview and in a semiprojective procedure using vignettes to elicit children's narratives about interpersonal conflict and distress. Psychiatric assessments yielded similar patterns for children of depressed and well mothers, but semiprojective representations differed for the two groups. Children of well mothers showed prototypic expressions of adaptive guilt involving themes of responsibility and reparation, especially at the older ages. In contrast, themes of children of depressed mothers often were aberrant, distorted, and unresolved, indicating possible differences in the etiology and functions of their guilt. Guilt is considered in relation to other dimensions of affect, theories of moral development, patterns of adaptation and maladaptation, and processes of social transmission of emotional problems. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Development and content of imitation in the second and third years of life: A socialization perspective.

This study investigated the content and development of children's imitative behavior in the home in order to assess the potential role of imitation in early socialization. The data consisted of incidents of naturally occurring imitations of 16- and 29-month-old children collected by mothers trained in observational recording. Immediate imitations decreased with age, whereas deferred imitations increased with age. In terms of content, increases with age were found for (a) caretaking, self-care, and household task behaviors; (b) mannerisms and expressive behavior; and (c) other-directed discipline and control behaviors. Decreases with age were found for affective and noninstrumental behaviors. Differences in the content of children's imitations of parents and peers were also found. The findings suggest that the imitation of conventional social behaviors increases during the second and third years of life. The implications of developmental change for the socializing function of imitation are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Development of concern for others.

Investigated the development of prosocial and reparative behaviors by examining children's responses to distresses they caused and those they witnessed in others during the 2nd yr of life. Prosocial behaviors (help, sharing, provision of comfort) emerged between the ages of 1 and 2, increasing in frequency and variety over this time period. These behaviors were linked to expressions of concern as well as efforts to understand and experience the other's plight. Children's reparative behaviors after they had caused distress also increased with age. Age changes in these early signs of moral development were accompanied by social–cognitive changes in self-recognition. In assessments at age 2, children were most responsive to distress in their mothers but also showed some sensitivity toward unfamiliar persons. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The developmental origins of a disposition toward empathy: Genetic and environmental contributions.

The authors investigated the development of a disposition toward empathy and its genetic and environmental origins. Young twins' (N = 409 pairs) cognitive (hypothesis testing) and affective (empathic concern) empathy and prosocial behavior in response to simulated pain by mothers and examiners were observed at multiple time points. Children's mean level of empathy and prosociality increased from 14 to 36 months. Positive concurrent and longitudinal correlations indicated that empathy was a relatively stable disposition, generalizing across ages, across its affective and cognitive components, and across mother and examiner. Multivariate genetic analyses showed that genetic effects increased, and that shared environmental effects decreased, with age. Genetic effects contributed to both change and continuity in children's empathy, whereas shared environmental effects contributed to stability and nonshared environmental effects contributed to change. Empathy was associated with prosocial behavior, and this relationship was mainly due to environmental effects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perspective-taking and prosocial behavior.

Administered 10 perspective-taking tests (including 4 perceptual and 6 conceptual tasks) and 6 tests of prosocial behavior (including sharing, helping, and comforting) to 102 3-7 yr-olds. Results indicate that, although there was a significant age effect on performance for all but one of the perspective tasks, there was no evidence of a relationship between prosocial interventions and separate perceptual and conceptual indices. It is suggested that test batteries, rather than single task assessments, may be needed if stable indicators of a generalized ability for perspective taking are to be obtained. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)