In‐group bias in children's intention to help can be overpowered by inducing empathy

Abstract

An experimental vignette study was conducted among children (8-13 years) to examine whether inducing empathic understanding is an effective intervention to overpower peer group boundaries in children's helping. Children were induced or not induced to empathize with the recipient of help, who was or was not part of their (imagined) group of friends. Results showed that children intended to help in-group peers more compared to outgroup peers when empathic understanding was not induced. However, when empathy was induced, they intended to help friends and non-friends equally. Inducing empathic understanding was effective independent of the recipient's level of need, and children's advanced social perspective-taking ability. Encouraging children to imagine how a recipient of help feels might thus be a useful strategy to prevent peer group-based biases in children's helping behaviour.

From empathy to action: Can enhancing host‐society children's empathy promote positive attitudes and prosocial behaviour toward refugees?

“…Compared with the control condition children, who learned about refugees and were introduced to a (fictional) child who would be joining their school, participants who also heard a real‐life storybook expressed more empathy. This finding converges with studies that have successfully induced empathy through narrative (Batson et al, ; Shih et al, ; Sierksma et al, ; Todd & Galinsky, ). Although empathy was not directly related to outgroup attitudes or prosocial behaviours, compared with the information‐only control, children in the story condition also reported more positive attitudes toward refugees, at the trend level, and more helping intentions at lunch time.…”

“…Among children, empathy has been linked to prosocial behaviour toward an individual outgroup member in a minimal group paradigm (Abrams et al, ). Inducing empathy through an imagined friend group was also effective at overcoming ingroup biases in children's helping intentions (Sierksma, Thijs, & Verkuyten, ). These studies offer converging evidence that empathy can promote prosocial behaviour toward an individual outgroup member.…”

Empathy to action: Child and adolescent out‐group attitudes and prosocial behaviors in a setting of intergroup conflict

“…For example, among adults, feeling empathy for someone dependent on heroin produced more favorable evaluations of people struggling with drug addiction in general, and in turn, led to more resources being allocated to help that group (Batson et al, ). Complementing this research with emerging adults, there also is evidence that empathy is an important predictor of children's prosocial behavior (Sierksma, Thijs, & Verkuyten, ), and yet, to date, the EAA model has not been applied in developmental research.…”

“…Evidence shows that feeling empathy for others is an essential component of everyday interactions in middle childhood (Findlay, Girardi, & Coplan, ). Empathy has been linked to increased prosocial behavior among 6‐year‐old children (Eisenberg & Miller, ; Malti, Gummerum, Keller, & Buchmann, ), and is likely to encourage helping in intergroup contexts among 8–13‐year olds (Sierksma et al, ). Previous research has shown that differences in empathy may have an impact on prosocial behavior toward different social groups in middle childhood and early adolescence (Sierksma, Thijs, & Verkuyten, ).…”

“…For example, higher levels of dispositional empathy, or the ability to imagine and understand others' feelings and experiences, among 5–10‐year olds was related to greater prosociality toward an out‐group member, even when intergroup dynamics were competitive (Abrams, Van de Vyver, Pelletier, & Cameron, ). In addition, empathy induction in children has also been shown to reduce differences in helping intentions between imagined in‐group and out‐group peers (Sierksma et al, ; Taylor & Glen, ). Therefore, higher empathy may promote positive action between groups; however, the underlying mechanism remains unclear and this link has not been explored with natural groups in settings emerging from violent intergroup conflict.…”