Preschoolers' exclusion detection and empathy: the mediating role of moral evaluation

Empathy encompasses emotional, cognitive, and behavioral components. Although empathy for physical pain in preschoolers is well documented, less is known about their responses to others' social pain. Whether preschoolers empathize with socially excluded individuals and how exclusion detection and moral evaluation affect that empathy remain unclear. Our study examined the development of preschoolers' exclusion detection, moral evaluation, and empathy, and how these aspects relate to one another.

We conducted a cross-sectional study with 98 preschool children aged 3 to 5 years in northeastern China. Using the Cyberball paradigm, children observed a social exclusion scenario and answered questions to assess exclusion detection, moral evaluation, and empathy. We also investigated whether moral evaluation mediated the relationship between exclusion detection and empathy.

Exclusion detection, moral evaluation, and cognitive empathy develop rapidly with age, with 5-year-olds outperforming 3-year-olds in these abilities. Additionally, children's moral evaluation of the excluder mediated the relationship between exclusion detection and emotional and cognitive empathy, accounting for 19.6% and 19.7% of the total effect, respectively. Similarly, the moral evaluation of exclusionary behavior mediated the relationship between exclusion detection and emotional, cognitive, and behavioral empathy, accounting for 21.4%, 32.4%, and 24% of the total effect, respectively.

These findings suggest that children who excel at detecting exclusion and making suitable moral evaluations tend to display higher levels of empathy.