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Preschoolers' Empathy Profiles and Their Social Adjustment
Poline Simon1, Nathalie Nader-Grosbois1
1Chair Baron Frère in Special Education, Psychological Sciences Research Institute, Université Catholique de Louvain, Louvain-La-Neuve, Belgium.
Frontiers in Psychology
|December 27, 2021
Summary
Parental perceptions of preschooler empathy reveal gender and age correlations. Higher child empathy and specific personality traits link to better social skills and fewer behavioral issues.
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Child Psychology
- Social-Emotional Learning
Background:
- Preschoolers develop crucial social-emotional skills for peer and adult relationships.
- Empathy, understanding and sharing others' emotions, is vital for socio-emotional adjustment.
- Individual factors like age, gender, and personality influence empathy development.
Purpose of the Study:
- To explore parental perceptions of preschool children's cognitive and affective empathy.
- To investigate the relationship between children's individual characteristics (age, gender, personality) and their empathy.
- To examine links between children's empathy, personality, social adjustment, and behavioral problems.
Main Methods:
- An exploratory study involving 63 typically developing preschoolers and their parents.
- Parents completed questionnaires assessing child empathy, personality, and social (mal)adjustment.
- Analysis focused on parental perceptions of children's empathy components and related factors.
Main Results:
- Mothers and fathers generally agreed on children's empathy, except for emotion contagion.
- Girls showed more attention to others' emotions; boys exhibited better cognitive empathy.
- Child empathy correlated positively with age and personality traits (extraversion, emotional stability, agreeableness, openness).
- Cognitive empathy and personality were associated with improved social skills and reduced internalizing/externalizing behaviors.
Conclusions:
- Parental perceptions offer insights into preschooler empathy and its correlates.
- Nuanced links exist between empathy components, social adjustment, and behavior problems.
- Findings have implications for future research and early childhood prevention strategies.
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