The Development Of Empathy In Childhood
Before explaining the development of empathy in childhood, we are going to locate the origin of this term. The origin of the concept “empathy” derives from what the Scottish Enlightenment philosophy called “sympathy”. David Hume, in their treatise on human nature, and Adam Smith describe it as a natural means of communication.
It is this definition that will be used as a basis in neuroscience, developmental psychology, and social psychology. The development of empathy in childhood has yielded very curious data on evolutionary aspects as a species.
An idea stands out: Our socialization is not originally due to empathy ; evolutionary biology teaches us that altruistic behavior appeared before the acquisition of this potentiality.
Some species that lack empathy exhibit such behaviors. This is the case of social insects, such as bees that, dying shortly after stinging their target, are sacrificed to protect the swarm. The link between empathy and altruism is not simple.
The developmental psychology approach
Lipps’ (1903) work focused on the difference between the terms sympathy and empathy. Researchers in developmental psychology defined the concept of empathy as a multidimensional construction taking into account the cognitive component. This includes the recognition and understanding of the emotions of others and the emotional component, which consists of sharing the affection or the indirect response.
Cognitive models
Moreover, since the 90s has been studied empathy from the i emotional Source Intelligence , which highlights, first, the model Mayer and Salovey (1997). Empathy is considered as an element that includes the perception of emotions of others, as well as the understanding of them.
Another relevant model has been Bar-On’s (1997, 2000) social-emotional intelligence model. It is postulated that empathy is a component of a factor called interpersonal skills, and is considered as the ability to be aware of and understand the emotions, feelings and ideas of others.
These two models are not as integrative as those proposed in developmental psychology; the emotional component has no place in them, focusing more on the cognitive component.
Most current proposal
Today Batson and colleagues have proposed a distinction between perspective taking and empathy. Perspective taking seems to be the key precursor to specifically empathic reactions (Batson et al., 1992).
Hoffman’s model of empathy in childhood
As for Hoffman, the main theorist on the development of empathy in childhood, he recognizes two dimensions to study in empathy : the recognition of the internal states of others and the indirect affective response.
The Hoffman model explains how empathy begins and develops in children. He states that his “central idea is the integration of affect and cognition and goes beyond an approach to information processing.”
It states that empathy develops in a similar way to the stages of social cognitive development. This process begins with a global empathic feeling in which the child does not have a clear distinction between self and other and is confused about the source of that feeling.
From here, it progresses through several stages to the most advanced stage that combines what has been achieved in previous stages. In the more advanced stages one can empathize with others, knowing that they are physical entities other than the self and have internal states independent of the subject itself.
A mature level of empathy enables the subject to be more influenced by the vital condition of the other than by the immediate situation. According to Hoffman, there must be a parallel of feelings and affections with thoughts, moral principles and behavioral tendencies.
Stages of the development of empathy in childhood
The development of empathy from early childhood of human beings according to Hoffman consists of 4 stages:
First stage (global empathy)
It includes the first year of life of the person and consists of the fact that the child still does not perceive others as different from himself, so the pain he perceives in another is confused with his own unpleasant feelings, as if it were happening to them. themselves. For example, the baby who, seeing his mother crying, wipes his eyes.
For example, an 11-month-old girl saw another girl fall and began to cry, she stared at the victim for a moment, then put her thumb in her mouth and hid her face in her mother’s lap; her usual reaction when she was hurt.
Second stage (egocentric empathy)
It corresponds to the second year of life, he is aware that it is another person who experiences the unpleasant situation; however, he assumes that the internal states that the other experiences are those that he is experiencing.
A 13-month-old boy who sees a sad adult offers him his favorite doll, and another boy of the same age ran to find his mother to comfort another child who was crying, even when the mother of the other child was Present.
Third stage of the development of the child’s empathy (empathy towards the feelings of others)
It goes from the second to the third year. The child is aware that the feelings he experiences are different from those of the other person, being able to respond to them in a non-egocentric way.
At this point you are already in a position to understand that someone else’s intentions and needs differ from your own, and therefore that person’s emotions may also differ from your own. Thus, for example, he becomes capable of comforting.
Fourth stage (empathy towards the other’s life condition)
It includes the final period of childhood, the feelings of others are perceived not only as reactions of the moment, but also as expressions of their general life experience. That is, they respond differently to transient and chronic pain states, since they take into account the general condition of the other.
The child develops the capacity to be empathetic with the conditions of life, of a culture, a class or a group of individuals. This combination is the most advanced form of empathy and is refined with the child’s cognitive development.
