The Influence of Empathic Concern on Prosocial Behaviour in Children

• Main Authors: Amanda eWilliams, Kelly eO'Driscoll, Chris eMoore
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2014-05-01
• Series: Frontiers in Psychology
• Subjects: Empathy; emotion; Children; sharing; prosocial behaviour
• Online Access: http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00425/full

This research explored the influence of empathic distress on prosocial behaviour in a resource allocation task with children. Children were randomly assigned to one of two conditions before engaging in a sticker sharing task; watching either a video of a girl upset that her dog had gone missing (emotion induction condition), or a video of the same girl preparing for a yard sale (control condition). In study one, 5-6 year old children in the emotion induction condition rated the emotional state of both the protagonist and the self more negatively, and also exhibited more prosocial behaviour; sharing more in advantageous inequity trials, and less often withholding a benefit in disadvantageous inequity trials, than the control group. Prosocial behaviour was significantly correlated with ratings of the emotional state of the protagonist but not with own emotional state, suggesting that empathic concern rather than personal distress was the primary influence on prosocial behaviour. In study two, 3-year-olds were tested on advantageous inequity trials alone, and like the 5 and 6-year-olds, showed more prosocial behaviour in the emotion induction condition than the control.