Sympathy through affective perspective taking and its relation to prosocial behavior in toddlers.

TLDR

Early research on sympathy typically presents children with an overtly distressed person to observe their responses. This study examined whether toddlers could sympathize with a victim who experienced harm yet displayed no emotion. The authors presented 18‑ and 25‑month‑old toddlers with an adult who either harmed another adult by destroying or taking her possessions or performed a similar non‑harmful action, while the victim remained emotionless in both conditions. Toddlers displayed greater concern and prosocial actions toward the victim in the harm condition, with their concerned looks predicting subsequent helping, indicating that very young children can sympathize without overt emotional cues, likely through affective perspective taking.

Abstract

In most research on the early ontogeny of sympathy, young children are presented with an overtly distressed person and their responses are observed. In the current study, the authors asked whether young children could also sympathize with a person to whom something negative had happened but who was expressing no emotion at all. They showed 18- and 25-month-olds an adult either harming another adult by destroying or taking away her possessions (harm condition) or else doing something similar that did not harm her (neutral condition). The "victim" expressed no emotions in either condition. Nevertheless, in the harm as compared with the neutral condition, children showed more concern and subsequent prosocial behavior toward the victim. Moreover, children's concerned looks during the harmful event were positively correlated with their subsequent prosocial behavior. Very young children can sympathize with a victim even in the absence of overt emotional signals, possibly by some form of affective perspective taking.