Testing Two Role-Taking Approaches to Promoting Children’s Kind Emotions

• In Event: Poster Session 10
  In Poster Session: PS 10 Topic - Moral Development

Abstract

Feeling responsible for one’s wrongdoings motivates children to behave prosocially and refrain from behaving antisocially (Malti & Krettenauer, 2013; Tangney et al., 2007). But how can adults promote ethically relevant feelings, such as sympathy and remorse, after children transgress moral norms? Psychologists and philosophers have suggested that taking another’s viewpoint can foster ethical motivations (Batson et al., 2003; Lickona, 2018; Murdoch, 1970). By considering other people’s viewpoints and feelings, one may be better able to understand and appreciate how their actions impacted another and recognize how one violated ethical principles (Batson, 2009; Selman, 1980). Research with adults has delineated two approaches to such role-taking: (a) imagining another person’s perspective (i.e., other-focused), or (b) imagining yourself in another person’s position (i.e., self-focused; Batson, Early, & Salvarani, 1997). Compared to an other-focus, self-focused approaches often elicit stronger emotional responses, presumably because they may better evoke memories of similar events from one’s past, enhancing one’s empathic response towards others (Hoffman, 1978).

These techniques, however, have not been empirically examined among children. It’s possible that encouraging children to use self-focused role-taking may be less or comparably effective compared to other-focused approaches. For example, self-focused role-taking may be too cognitively demanding or over-arousing for children, causing them to experience self-focused distress as opposed to other-oriented emotions. Here, we experimentally tested these techniques with children.

We examined this question with an ethnically diverse sample of 210 6-, and 8-year-olds (52% female), from a large Canadian city. We read children three hypothetical vignettes depicting ethical transgressions, such as stealing from a peer, from an established measure (citation withheld for review). Prior to each story, we introduced children with an image of the victim. We asked children, for the upcoming story, to either (a) imagine how this child (the victim) is feeling (other-focused condition) or (b) imagine how they would feel if they were the child (self-focused condition). After each vignette, we asked children how they would feel if they had committed the act and why. Responses that involved feeling sad, bad, guilty, or related emotions and referred to ethical reasons, such as fairness or others’ welfare, were considered kind emotions. We averaged children’s scores (1 = kind emotion, 0 = other) across stories.

We tested our research questions using an analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) with kind emotions as the dependent variable, age group and gender as control variables, and condition as our independent variable. In line with our expectations, kind emotions differed by condition (see Figure 1), F(1, 205) = 6.143, p = .014, partial η2 = .029, with the other-focused condition reporting more kind emotions (M = .531, SD = .366) than self-focused condition (M = .418, SD = .319). The interaction between age group and condition was not significant, p = .932, suggesting that effects were consistent across age groups. This finding suggests that other-focused role-taking approaches are more effective at eliciting kind emotions in middle child. It also holds valuable implications for parents, educators, and interventionists interested in promoting children’s social-emotional development.

Authors

• Sebastian P Dys, University of Waterloo
  Presenting Author

• Tina Malti, University of Toronto
  Non-Presenting Author