Empathy in preschool children: The development of the Southampton Test of Empathy for Preschoolers (STEP).

Howe, Alexandra; Cate, Ineke Pit-Ten; Brown, Antony; Hadwin, Julie A.

doi:10.1037/a0012763

Cited by 18 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…[Eisenberg and Fabes, ]. Our results confirm this tendency even in preschoolers, when the scores are attributed by teachers, and they are also in line with different studies on empathy with preschoolers using diverse methodologies, that is, self‐report measures, emotional reactions to empathy‐inducing films, and comprehension and sharing response to video vignettes of children in emotionally evocative scenarios [Howe et al., ; Valiente et al., ]. Furthermore, empathy seems a rather stable trait in our preschoolers, nonetheless the cross‐sectional nature of our data does not allow us to generalize this outcome: a longitudinal study would provide more confident results.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Feeling and Thinking of Others: Affective and Cognitive Empathy and Emotion Comprehension in Prosocial/Hostile Preschoolers

Belacchi

Farina

2012

Aggressive Behavior

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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 [Belacchi and Farina, 2010] and children's emotion comprehension by a nonverbal test [Test of Emotion Comprehension: Pons and Harris, 2000; adapted by Albanese and Molina; 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.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Feeling and Thinking of Others: Affective and Cognitive Empathy and Emotion Comprehension in Prosocial/Hostile Preschoolers

Belacchi

Farina

2012

Aggressive Behavior

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“…High levels of moral reasoning and the capacity for empathic responding to others have been associated with the quality of children's peer and sibling relationships, problem-solving ability, and prosocial behavior (Chapman, Zahn-Waxler, Cooperman, & Iannotti, 1987;Costin & Jones, 1992;Dunn, Brown, & Maguire, 1995;Dunn & Herrera, 1997;Feldman, 2007;Howe, Cate, Brown, & Hadwin, 2008). On the other hand, moral cognitions characterized by aggression and denial are related to negative peer interactions and a lack of prosocial action (Garner, 1996;Wan & Green, 2010).…”

Section: * * *mentioning

confidence: 96%

Children's emotional responsiveness and sociomoral understanding and associations with mothers' and fathers' socialization practices

Garner

2012

Infant Mental Health Journal

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Sixty-two preschoolers (55% boys) were presented hypothetical dilemmas about moral transgressions. Responses were evaluated in terms of children's emotional responsiveness, prosocial motives, and readiness to intervene. Mothers and fathers reported separately on their use of victim-oriented inductions, teaching reparations, power assertion, and love withdrawal. Four years later, parents reported on children's behavioral problems, emotion-regulation ability, and empathy. Mothers reported using more victim-oriented inductions than did fathers, and girls responded with more personal distress and reported more rule-oriented motives. Maternal love withdrawal was a positive predictor of empathy and motives of concern. For fathers, teaching reparations were positively related to children's sympathy. Interestingly, mothers' power assertion was negatively related to sympathy at high levels of fathers' power assertion, but not at low levels. Maternal power assertion during the preschool years was negatively associated with children's long-term empathy scores. School-age outcomes also were meaningfully predicted by earlier sociomoral competence.

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“…Higher quality child care is generally related to more competent peer relationships during preschool and into the school years (Holloway & Reichart-Erickson, 1989;Howes, 1990). In a study by Howe, Cate, Ineke, Brown, and Hadwin (2008) with 2,800 U.S. children (three to four years of age), higher quality early education programs resulted in growth in both academic and social skills. The children's gains were primarily contributed by classroom instructional climate and secondarily to teacher-child relationships.…”

Section: Environmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Model of Social Competence in an Early Childhood Environment

Lim¹,

Rodger²,

Brown³

2013

Occupational Therapy in Mental Health

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Maintaining relationships and interacting socially are essential aspects of children's occupational performance. A Model of Social Competence in an Early Childhood environment has been formulated to guide the assessment of and intervention for young children with issues in social skills. This article aims to (1) present the constructs that contribute to social competence for young children, (2) describe the interrelated contextual, foundation and environmental influences on social competence using the Model of Social Competence in an Early Childhood environment as a means of systematically examining these factors, and (3) discuss future directions for early intervention for children with social competence concerns. Cultural considerations will be discussed in relation to the Singaporean early childhood context.

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Empathy in preschool children: The development of the Southampton Test of Empathy for Preschoolers (STEP).

Cited by 18 publications

References 25 publications

Feeling and Thinking of Others: Affective and Cognitive Empathy and Emotion Comprehension in Prosocial/Hostile Preschoolers

Feeling and Thinking of Others: Affective and Cognitive Empathy and Emotion Comprehension in Prosocial/Hostile Preschoolers

Children's emotional responsiveness and sociomoral understanding and associations with mothers' and fathers' socialization practices

Model of Social Competence in an Early Childhood Environment

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