Emotional awareness, empathy, and generosity in high-risk youths

Although maltreatment places youths at risk for substantial deficits in prosociality, effective methods of improving these deficits have yet to be identified. The current investigation tested whether prosociality could be enhanced in maltreated youths by increasing their awareness of others' sadness. Maltreated youths (n = 145) and matched community youths (n = 106) aged 6-17 years completed a sharing task within which labels about a peer's emotions (sad vs. neutral) were experimentally manipulated. Youths who received the sad emotion label about a peer's feelings showed greater empathic concern, and in turn generosity, toward that peer than youths who received the neutral label. Findings offer new insight into potential methods of improving prosocial responding in youths and thus provide direction for intervention efforts.