Le développement de l’empathie chez le jeune enfant

Abstract

L’empathie est un concept qui reflète la capacité de percevoir et d’être sensible aux états émotionnels des autres, souvent associée à une motivation à prendre soin de leur bien-être. L’empathie joue un rôle central dans la motivation des comportements prosociaux. Alors que son développement est le plus souvent examiné à l’aide d’études comportementales et observationnelles, un nombre croissant de travaux en neurosciences apporte un nouvel éclairage sur les mécanismes neurobiologiques impliqués dans cette sensibilité interpersonnelle. Cet article examine de manière critique et sélective les connaissances actuelles en neurosciences développementales chez le très jeune enfant. La décomposition de l’empathie en composants tels que le partage d’affects, la prise de perspective, le souci de l’autre et la régulation des émotions, en conjonction avec l’examen de leur trajectoire développementale, est bénéfique aux recherches et théories dans le domaine des neurosciences affectives du développement.

Reflection on traditional sporting games: the impact of bodily involvement on empathic dimensions

“…Moreover, many research studies, some of which have been discussed in this article, reported that body games, particularly traditional sports activities, typically boost and reinforce players’ empathic behavior. Thus, if empathic dispositions are present at a young age ( Decety and Holvoet, 2021 ), exercise through body games would uncover and preserve their full potential. Such is the case with paradoxical games, which offer further decision-making flexibility than institutionalized games.…”

“…According to many studies, some of which have been presented in this study, bodily games, particularly traditional sporting activities, tend to encourage and strengthen participants’ empathic behavior. If empathetic dispositions are present at an early age ( Decety and Holvoet, 2021 ), exercise through body games would reveal and preserve their full potential. Thus, empathy may be considered a pedagogical construct that can be better handled if the internal and external logics of some classic sports activities are thoroughly investigated.…”

Empathy in Preschoolers: Exploring Profiles and Age- and Gender-Related Differences

“…In the literature, affective and cognitive empathy are the most commonly considered dimensions. Affective empathy is defined as the capacity to share and feel the emotion felt by another person [2], and consists of an automatic response based on an emotional stimulus, such as, for example, a facial expression, a sound, or a situation [3]. Cognitive empathy, considered as a controlled response [3], concerns the understanding of the emotional situation of others [2].…”

“…Affective empathy is defined as the capacity to share and feel the emotion felt by another person [2], and consists of an automatic response based on an emotional stimulus, such as, for example, a facial expression, a sound, or a situation [3]. Cognitive empathy, considered as a controlled response [3], concerns the understanding of the emotional situation of others [2]. In other words, cognitive empathy corresponds to the ability to take another person's perspective and to recognize the emotions and the social cues corresponding to an emotional situation [4].…”