Caring babies: Concern for others in distress during infancy.
concern for others
development
empathic concern
empathy
infancy
prosocial behavior
Journal
Developmental science
ISSN: 1467-7687
Titre abrégé: Dev Sci
Pays: England
ID NLM: 9814574
Informations de publication
Date de publication:
03 2021
03 2021
Historique:
received:
20
07
2019
revised:
20
06
2020
accepted:
22
06
2020
pubmed:
11
7
2020
medline:
24
4
2021
entrez:
11
7
2020
Statut:
ppublish
Résumé
Concern for distressed others is a highly valued human capacity, but little is known about its early ontogeny. Theoretical accounts of empathy development have emphasized stages, but this has been called into question. This study sheds new light on four key issues: onset, consistency, development, and predictive power of early manifestations of concern for others. Three-month-old Israei infants (N = 165) were followed longitudinally at ages 6, 12, and 18 months, and their observed responses to others' distress were assessed. Concern for distressed others was seen early in the first year of life, long before previous theories assumed. Empathic concern was moderately consistent across both situation and age, from as early as 3 months. Concern for others grew only modestly with age, plateauing during the second year, whereas prosocial behavior increased rapidly during the second year. Early individual differences in concern for others predicted later prosocial behavior on behalf of distressed others. Findings underscore the early roots of caring, and appear to refute assumptions of prior stage theories of empathy development, by showing that concern for others develops much earlier and more gradually than previously assumed.
Types de publication
Journal Article
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Langues
eng
Sous-ensembles de citation
IM
Pagination
e13016Informations de copyright
© 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
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