The Development of Empathy

Saxe identifies this group as preverbal babies. By studying the behaviors of these infants, psychologists are able determine that basic instinct that humans share. These babies, aged between four and twelve months, are much too young to be influenced by the institution around them. The infants are also too young to communicate their thought processes, so psychologists analyze the only responses these infants can communicate, looking and crawling. In the experiment involving these preverbal infants, babies were shown videos of one man being “nice” to a girl while another was “mean” to the girl.

Knowledge of empathic behavior is essential for an understanding of social and moral human development and prior to the technological advancement, empathy was not understood biologically.

In the video “Matteo's mess,” Oakley was observed showing empathy because he offered assistance to clean up Matteo’s mess; Oakley took the paper towel and wiped Matteo’s milk that spilled on the table. The High Scope Infant-Toddler Key Development Indicators (n.d), skill # 9, Empathy, indicates that “Children show empathy toward the feelings and needs of others.” Therefore, I conclude that Oakley demonstrated a developmental norm for his age when he offered assistance to clean.

The article, “A Social-Neuroscience Perspective on Empathy,” in the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science, explores both behavioral and cognitive studies and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies to understand how the emotional and affective states of others elicit an empathetic response in an individual, how the brain processes these emotions, and how it is essential for the brain to differentiate empathy from self-emotions. Additionally, the authors explain how an empathetic response to another’s emotions or affect is critical in social interactions. The authors define empathy as “the capacity to understand and respond to the unique affective experiences of another person.” They also state that there are three universal components of empathy, “(1) an affective response to another person, which often entails sharing the person’s emotional state; (2) a cognitive capacity to take the perspective of another person; and (3) emotional regulation.” These primary components of empathy drive the basic mechanisms for social interaction, which are the automatic tendency to mimic the

One of the most essential experiences in shaping the architecture of the developing brain is “serve and return” interaction between children and significant adults in their lives. During this process infants or young children naturally reach out for interaction through babbling, facial expressions, and gestures, and adults respond with the same kind of vocalizing and gesturing back at them (Center on the Developing Child, Harvard, 2013). This

Evolution is considered by many to be a process powered by selfishness, and a process in which only the “strongest” survive. However, contrary to popular belief, it is in fact empathy which has helped homosapiens survive through the ages. Empathy first originated with the evolution of maternal care within animals. Females had to know when their children were sick, in danger, or hurt. This is especially evident in complex animals like primates, dolphins, and elephants. In contrast to other animal groups, who are normally hostile to strangers of the same species, human beings and other primates in fact welcome strangers, as they know what it's like to experience starvation, loss, and disease. We know the value of cooperation, and this knowledge

The most frequently taught description of empathy in today’s college textbooks defines it as “emotional reactions that are focused on, or oriented toward, other people and include feelings of compassion, sympathy, and concern” (Baron & Branscombe, 2012). Furthermore, students are also learning that there may be a societal decline in empathy that is occurring among college students at a small but somewhat significant level. Unfortunately, there are currently no empirical answers for this decline. Empathy is an enigma that science has longed to understand and explain since Theodor Lipps and Edward Tichener named the earliest known concept of imitation and empathy, “Einfuhlung,” in the early 1900s (Gerdes, Lietz,

Empathy is the ability to understand and experience the feelings of others, particularly others’ suffering. Humanity’s gift of understanding complex emotions ushers in a new way of understanding ourselves and how we react to stimuli. This ultimately leads to questioning of everything, leading us to one strong notion: Does empathy guide or hinder moral action?

In a longitudinal study of synchrony and the development of morality, Feldman (2007) found that mother-infant synchrony measured in the first year of life (3 and 9 months) was directly associated with empathy level in childhood and adolescence (6 and 13 years). Specifically, the more mothers and infants matched and influenced each other’s behaviors during face-to-face play in infancy, the more empathy was expressed by the child during mother-child conversations that occurred during middle childhood and adolescence. In general, maternal warmth has been found to be an important factor in promoting empathy development. Toddlers and children who had parents who were observed to display more warmth toward them during a variety of interactions in

Could the results of these experiments hypothesis show that the infants' and, therefore, our responses to negative social interactions are primarily neurological in origin? Do said results instead show that we are cognitively able to form judgements about negative social interactions at only three months of age?

An important piece in empathy is the early development of theory of mind. Theory of mind is an ability that helps us understand people’s mental states as thoughts, wants, motives and feelings (Astington & Edward, 2010). This essential ability is strongly sustained by social cognition (Flavell & Miller, 1998), the potential necessary for children to socialize with other people and consider their point of view (put themselves in someone else’s shoes) (Astington, 1993).

Animals have shown empathy in many ways. The first way they have shown empathy is through yawning. As “Wolves Howl Together, Hunt Together, and Yawn Together, Researchers Say,” says, “Yet the tendency for yawns to be contagious has been ‘linked to our capacity for empathy,’ both by looking at our behaviors and our biology”. This shows that animals yawning means they have empathy by yawning to others in their species. The third way they have shown empathy is by mourning for their dead. In “Why Elephants Never Forget,” by

Counselors who work with pregnant adolescents and adolescents with sexually transmitted diseases must be aware of the ethical and legal issues that will arise, the individual characteristics of high risk youth, family problem related to at-risk youth, school issues that might impact at-risk youth, and the prevention, intervention and treatment options. In working with adolescents engaged in risky, sexual behavior, it is imperative for counselors to demonstrate empathy towards them. Counselors cannot be judgmental. They need to respect their client. To effectively counsel an adolescent like Amy Briggs in To Save a Life (2009), it is imperative for the counselor to educate themselves on the issues adolescents go through daily and to understand

Sympathy does play a big role in a child's life. If a child has no sympathy, they will most-likely not care about others, have patience for others, or be fair to others. "The affective experience of sympathy in early childhood may lead to a general orientation to consider the needs of others and the early development of norms of fairness of care (see Knafo, Zahn- Waxler, Van Hulle, Robinson, & Rhee, 2008; Malti, Gumerum, et al., 2012) (Ongley et al., 2013). This study has limitations, but it also has strengths. "As a result, the current study provides valuable insight into the predictive tole of moral emotions in sharing behavior and thus contributes to our understanding of why humans develop the willingness to take the welfare of others into account" (Ongley et al.,

I believe empathy is formed at home. When we are kids, our parents teach us the golden rule, which is: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. As we grow older, we are taught that it´s important to care about people’s feelings. We grow up with the idea that we shouldn't only care about ourselves, but always be concerned for others. In my opinion, everyone should desire