[The effects of three types of aggression on empathy in elementary school children]

This study examined how three types of aggression (reactive-expressive, reactive-inexpressive, and proactive-relational) influence empathy (empathic cognition, role-taking, sharing emotion, and helping) which were regarded as the emotional aspects of social information processing (SIP). Elementary school children (grades four to six; n=667) completed a set of questionnaires consisting of the Proactive-Reactive Aggression Questionnaire for assessing the three types of aggression and an originally developed hypothetical-conflict-situation instrument for children's empathy responses to each of the three types of aggressive responses, which were presented using vignettes. Results showed that, compared to non-aggressive children, proactive-relationally aggressive children felt fewer empathy responses except for role-taking in any aggressive-response situations. This result was also supported by the structural equation modeling analyses that were conducted to verify whether children's aggression causes their distortion of empathy. The implication that proactive-relationally aggressive children seemed to have deficits in the emotional components of the SIP was discussed.