1-202 - Windows into early empathy and emotion regulation

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Empathy and emotion regulation are key processes that underpin children’s developing social competencies. Understanding these processes and how to support them through development requires a varied and cross-disciplinary approach. This symposium will present a range of methodological and conceptual approaches, drawing together different research traditions to better understand early empathy and emotion regulation.

Paper One: Presenting data from a longitudinal study where detailed behvaivioral coding of a quasi-naturalistic crying baby paradigm (presented either in the home or in a nursery setting) was conducted when toddlers were aged 24- and 36-months. This paper discusses both developmental and methodological implications.

Paper Two: Also utilizing a crying baby paradigm, this paper identifies brain responsivity in relation to empathy. Specifically, this paper identifies that variability in brain responsivity to hearing others in distress in infancy is related to later prosocial behavior. These findings highlight developmental and neurological pathways of empathy.

Paper Three: This paper contributes to important conversation about the conceptualization of empathy by examining the association between children’s affective responses, cognitive empathy and social behaviour. Data will be presented from an empirical study that presented children with an empathy-eliciting event at the ever-critical transition to school.

Paper Four: This paper rounds out the symposium by highlighting some differences in emotion regulation, specifically imitation, in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Williams Syndrome (WS), and typical development. Highlighting the interplay between social, cognitive, and motor factors involved in emotion regulation, this paper will discuss patterns of syndrome-specific strengths and weaknesses in imitation performance.

Sub Unit

• Moral Development

Chair

• Gabrielle G McHarg, University of Cambridge

Individual Presentations

• Crying Babies, Empathic Toddlers, Responsive Mothers and Fathers: Exploring Parent-Toddler Interactions in an Empathy Paradigm - Presenting Author: Gabrielle G McHarg, University of Cambridge; Non-Presenting Author: Elian Fink, University of Cambridge; Non-Presenting Author: Claire Hughes, University of Cambridge

• Evidence for a Link Between Brain Sensitivity to Emotional Vocalizations in Infancy and Later Empathy-Related Behavior - Presenting Author: Tobias Grossmann, University of Virginia; Non-Presenting Author: Manuela Missana, Leipzig University; Non-Presenting Author: Nicole Altvater-Mackensen, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz; Non-Presenting Author: Amrisha Vaish, The University of Virginia

• Young Children’s Affective Responses to Another’s Distress: Affective Empathy, Cognitive Empathy and Social Behaviour - Presenting Author: Elian Fink, University of Cambridge; Non-Presenting Author: Gabrielle G McHarg, University of Cambridge; Non-Presenting Author: Marc de Rosnay, University of Wollongong

• Social vs Instrumental Motives Underlying Preschoolers’ Imitation – Insights from ASD, Williams Syndrome, and Typical Development - Presenting Author: Giacomo Vivanti, Drexel Autism Institute, Drexel University