A Study on the Influence of Empathy on Helping Behavior of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder Under Different...

This study explored empathy's effect on helping behavior of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) under different affective priming. Experiment 1 examined the predictive effect of autistic children's empathic ability on their helping behavior; Experiment 2 explored whether positive versus negative affective priming moderated this predictive effect for high-empathy autistic children.

Two experiments were carried out. Experiment 1 used the Chinese Measure of Empathy and Sympathy (MES) to group participants into high/low-empathy groups by top/bottom 30% scores, with the Block-Dropping Task measuring helping behavior. Experiment 2 recruited only children with the top 30% MES scores as high-empathy subjects, divided them equally into positive/negative priming subgroups; cartoon clips induced emotion, and the same task assessed helping behavior.

Experiment 1 revealed that the high-empathy group demonstrated significantly higher helping behavior scores (M = 3.54, SD = 0.51) compared with the low-empathy group (M = 1.29, SD = 1.46). Empathic ability exerted a significant positive predictive effect on the helping behavior of children with ASD (Z = - 4.929, p < .001). Experiment 2 indicated that no significant disparity in helping behavior was observed between the two affective priming groups, and affective priming valence showed no significant influence on the helping behavior of high-empathy autistic children (Z = - 1.152, p = .250).

These findings illuminate the roles of empathic ability and affective priming in the helping behavior of autistic children, offering novel insights into the mechanisms underlying their social-behavioral development and informing directions for educational intervention.