Empathy is an important social skill and is believed to play an essential role in moral development (Hoffman, 2000). In the present longitudinal study, the authors investigated adolescents' development of perspective taking and empathic concern from age 13 to 18 years (mean age at Wave 1 = 13 years, SD = 0.46) and examined its association with pubertal status. Adolescents (283 boys, 214 girls) reported for 6 consecutive years on their dispositional perspective taking and empathic concern and for 4 consecutive years on pubertal status. Latent growth curve modeling revealed gender differences in levels and developmental trends. Gender differences in perspective taking emerged during adolescence, with girls' increases being steeper than those of the boys. Girls also showed higher levels of empathic concern than did boys. Whereas girls' empathic concern remained stable across adolescence, boys showed a decrease from early to middle adolescence with a rebound to the initial level thereafter. Boys who were physically more mature also reported lower empathic concern than did their less physically developed peers. The current study supports theoretical notions that perspective taking develops during adolescence as a result of cognitive development. Moreover, the results suggest that pubertal maturation plays a role in boys' development of empathic concern.

This study examined empathy-related responding in male adolescents with disruptive behavior disorder (DBD), high or low on callous-unemotional (CU) traits. Facial electromyographic (EMG) and heart rate (HR) responses were monitored during exposure to empathy-inducing film clips portraying sadness, anger or happiness. Self-reports were assessed afterward. In agreement with expectations, DBD adolescents with high CU traits showed significantly lower levels of empathic sadness than healthy controls across all response systems. Between DBD subgroups significant differences emerged at the level of autonomic (not verbal or facial) reactions to sadness, with high CU respondents showing less HR change from baseline than low CU respondents. The study also examined basal patterns of autonomic function. Resting HR was not different between groups, but resting respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) was significantly lower in DBD adolescents with high CU traits compared to controls. Results support the notion that CU traits designate a distinct subgroup of DBD individuals.

We examined whether the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI; Davis, 1980 ), consisting of Perspective Taking (PT), Empathic Concern (EC), Personal Distress (PD), and Fantasy (FN), is a psychometrically invariant empathy measure for early and late adolescents and their mothers. Confirmatory factor analyses demonstrated adequate properties and psychometric invariance across 2 Dutch samples (269 early adolescents, 232 late adolescents). Females scored higher than males on each subscale. Early adolescents scored lower than late adolescents on PT and FN, and higher on PD. The different groups showed similar subscale associations with psychosocial health indexes, and similar subscale contributions to a higher order empathy dimension. Most dimensions showed positive correlations between adolescents and mothers. The IRI appears adequate for examining empathy across the span of adolescence, as well as patterns between youths and mothers.

Two experiments were conducted to determine whether attention mediates the effects of affective distractors on cold pressor pain, or whether the cognitive processes of priming and appraisal best account for the effects. In Experiment I, 65 male respondents were exposed to either pleasant, neutral or unpleasant pictures selected from the International Affective Pictures System (IAPS). The cold-pressor test was administered simultaneously. Consistent with predictions based on priming and appraisal hypotheses, results revealed a linear trend across conditions, such that pain tolerance scores were higher as a function of picture pleasantness. A second study was conducted to examine the role of pain cues in the effects of negative affect on cold pressor pain. Thirty-nine male respondents were exposed to unpleasant pictures that either did or did not include pain-related material. Respondents who viewed pictures without pain cues tolerated the cold water for a longer period of time than respondents who viewed pictures that contained pain-related information. Priming and appraisal processes that might underlie the observed differences, and the type of affective distractors that could be meaningful for enhancing pain tolerance, are discussed.

The present study addressed empathy's role in conflict resolution within the context of adolescent same-sex friendship relations. Self-report questionnaires were used to assess dispositional affective empathy and conflict resolution styles (problem solving, conflict engagement, withdrawal and compliance). The data of 307 adolescents (149 boys, 158 girls) were included in a multigroup path analysis with sex as a moderator variable. In agreement with the hypothesis that higher levels of dispositional empathy are associated with more successful conflict management, dispositional affective empathy was found to be positively linked to problem solving and negatively linked to conflict engagement among adolescent boys and girls. Dispositional affective empathy was not related to the two more passive strategies (withdrawal and compliance). Sex differences were demonstrated in empathic tendencies, with girls being more empathic than boys. Sex differences were also established in conflict resolution strategies, with girls using problem solving, withdrawal and compliance more frequently than boys. Both sexes scored equally low on conflict engagement, however, and were found to prefer problem solving to all other conflict resolution strategies. Findings are discussed in terms of previous research on empathy and conflict resolution. Aggr. Behav. 33:48-55, 2007. r

Empathy, which is the ability to feel concern for and to understand others’ feelings, is thought to develop in high quality relationships with parent and peers, but also to facilitate the quality of these relationships. While a wide literature has addressed this aspect, the heterogeneity of primary studies, in which different indicators of relationship quality (e.g., support, conflict) and empathy (i.e., affective and cognitive) have been examined, makes it difficult to draw conclusive answers. Therefore, it remained ambiguous how parent–child and peer relationship quality are associated with adolescents’ empathy. In order to increase the understanding of these associations, a multilevel meta-analysis was performed, which allowed for including multiple effect sizes from each study. By a systematic literate search, 70 eligible studies were found that provided 390 effect sizes from 75 independent samples. The results showed a small positive correlation between parent–child relationship quality and empathy, and a small-to-moderate positive correlation between peer relationship quality and empathy, which was significantly stronger than the correlation with parent–child relationship quality. Hence, the meta-analytic results indicate that adolescents with higher quality relationships, especially with peers, indeed tend to show more concern for and understanding of others’ emotions than adolescents with lower quality relationships. Moreover, the moderation analyses showed stronger correlations for the positive dimension of relationship quality than for the negative dimension, and stronger correlations for composite scores of affective and cognitive empathy than for separate scores of the empathy dimensions. However, no differences in correlations were found between the affective and cognitive empathy dimension, and no moderation effects were found for gender and age. Thus, this meta-analysis demonstrates robust positive associations between parent–child and peer relationship quality and empathy in adolescence, implying that good empathic abilities may be a protective factor for experiencing poor relationships.

Background: The present study examined empathy in 8-to 12-year-old clinically referred boys with disruptive behavior disorders (DBD) (n ¼ 25) and age-matched normal controls (n ¼ 24). Method: Situational empathy was assessed by children's emotional and cognitive responses to six empathy-inducing vignettes (displaying sadness, anger or happiness). Dispositional affective empathy was measured by a self-report questionnaire for children. Results: In line with predictions, results revealed deficits in dispositional and situational empathy among DBD boys, and inverse relationships between both empathy measures and parent-reports of aggressive/disruptive behavior among all children. The study also explored whether DBD boys are less responsive to just any emotion, or to specific emotions. Compared to normal controls, DBD boys responded less empathically to sadness and anger, but equally empathically to happiness. In addition, while DBD boys responded less empathically than the normal controls to each and every sadness vignette, they did not show equally low levels of empathic responses to all sadness vignettes. Conclusions: These findings suggest that situational factors may be involved in DBD boys' reduced responsiveness to another person's sadness.

Based on the assumption that facial mimicry is a key factor in emotional empathy, and clinical observations that children with disruptive behavior disorders (DBD) are weak empathizers, the present study explored whether DBD boys are less facially responsive to facial expressions of emotions than normal controls. Facial electromyographic (EMG) activity in the zygomaticus major and corrugator supercilii muscle regions, and heart rate activity were studied in 22 clinically referred 8-12-year-old DBD boys and 22 age-matched normal controls during exposure to dynamic happy and angry expressions. Dispositional emotional empathy was assessed by a self-report questionnaire for children. The happy and angry facial expressions evoked distinct facial EMG response patterns, with increased zygomaticus muscle activity to happy expressions and increased corrugator muscle activity to angry expressions. The corrugator (but not the zygomaticus) muscle response pattern was less pronounced for DBD boys than the normal controls. Attending to the emotional expressions was associated with equivalent cardiac deceleration in both groups, reflecting a similar orienting/attention response. Lower empathy scores were obtained for DBD boys than for normal controls. In conclusion, facial mimicry responses to angry facial expressions were subnormal in DBD boys, which may be a sign of a deficient early component in the process of emotional empathy, and thus play a role in impaired empathic responding.