Poster #124 - Empathy Development in Infancy and its Links to Different Types of Prosocial Behavior

• In Event: 3-053 - Poster Session 10
  In Poster Session: PS 10 Section - Moral Development

Integrative Statement

Prosocial behavior (voluntary behavior intended to benefit another, e.g., Eisenberg, Fabes, & Spinrad, 2006) can come in a verity of forms, such as comforting distressed others, sharing a limited resource, or helping another to complete his/her goal. Different types of prosocial behavior can be driven by different motivations, and are not always correlated with one another (e.g., Davidov et al., 2016; Dunfield & Kuhlmeier, 2013).
Empathy for others in distress is one possible motivation for prosocial action, and it has been linked with prosocial behavior in toddlers and young children (e.g Zahn-Waxler et al., 1992). However, it remains unclear whether empathy motivates specific types of prosocial behavior, or rather is broadly associated with various forms of prosociality. In this study we were interested in prosocial behavior toward others in distress vs. instrumental helping (pragmatic assistance to non-distressed others). We wanted to see if very early empathic abilities during the first year of life could predict subsequent prosocial behavior in the second year of life, and if so, which of these types? Studies concerning empathy in the first year and its links to prosocial behavior are rare. We hypothesized that early empathic concern would be primarily predictive of prosocial behavior towards distressed others, whereas its link to instrumental helping would be weaker.
Longitudinal sample of Israeli infants were observed in their homes at ages 3-months (N=159), 6-months (N=155), 12-months (N=151) and 18-months (N=147). At each visit, infants’ responses to three distress episodes (mother, experimenter, video of peer) were assessed and coded for empathic concern. At 18-months, pro-social behavior was observed in four tasks – two toward a distressed other (crying simulation, sharing snack task) and two instrumental-helping tasks without distress (out of reach pen, finding a lost ball), all performed by the experimenter.
Instrumental helping at 18m was significantly more frequent than prosocial behavior towards another in distress (F(3,122)=92.76, p<.001) and with higher variability. Moreover, most of the toddlers who helped others in distress also helped at least once instrumentally (89%; 79% helped in both of the instrumental tasks), but not vice-versa (i.e., many children helped only instrumentally). Therefore, we classified the sample into three prosocial groups (see Table 1):
1. Non-helpers (27%) - didn’t help on any of the tasks.
2. Instrumental-helpers (60%) – helped only on the instrumental tasks (either one).
3. High-helpers (13%) - helped on at least one of the distress tasks.
Three hierarchical logistic regressions were conducted in order to predict prosocial classification from early empathic abilities entered hierarchically into the model, from earliest to concurrent (results summarized in Table 2). Empathic concern at 3m predicted the difference between the high-helpers and non-helpers (β=6.71, p=.044), and empathy at 6m predicted the difference between high-helpers and instrumental-helpers (β=4.35, p=.037). The differentiation between instrumental-helpers and non-helpers occurred only later in development, with empathic abilities at 12m predicting this classification (β=2.82, p=.038).
Thus, consistence with hypothesis, early empathy predicted primarily prosociality toward distress others, and to a lesser degree the occurrence of instrumental helping. Implications of the findings will be discussed.

Authors

• Yael Paz, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
  Presenting Author

• Maayan Davidov, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
  Non-Presenting Author

• Tal Orlitsky, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
  Non-Presenting Author

• Ronit Roth-Hanania, Tel Aviv-Yaffo Academic College
  Non-Presenting Author

• Carolyn Zahn-Waxler, University of Wisconsin-Madison
  Non-Presenting Author