Discuss the emergence of empathy in early childhood. How does this capacity affect prosocial, or altruistic, behavior?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Empathy serves as an important motivator of prosocial, or altruistic, behavior—actions that benefit another person without any expected reward for the self. Compared with toddlers, preschoolers rely more on words to communicate empathic feelings. And as the ability to take another's perspective improves, empathic responding increases. Yet in some children, empathy—feeling with another person and responding emotionally in a similar way—does not yield acts of kindness and helpfulness but, instead, escalates into personal distress. In trying to reduce these feelings, the child focuses on his own anxiety rather than the person in need. As a result, empathy does not lead to sympathy—feelings of concern or sorrow for another's plight.
Temperament plays a role in whether empathy prompts sympathetic, prosocial behavior or self-focused personal distress. Children who are sociable, assertive, and good at regulating emotion are more likely to help, share, and comfort others in distress. But poor emotion regulators, who are often overwhelmed by their feelings, less often display sympathetic concern and prosocial behavior. As with other aspects of emotional development, parenting affects empathy and sympathy. When parents show sensitive, empathic concern for their preschoolers' feelings, children are likely to react in a concerned way to the distress of others—relationships that persist into adolescence and early adulthood. Besides modeling sympathy, parents can teach children the importance of kindness and can intervene when they display inappropriate emotion—strategies that predict high levels of sympathetic responding.