Poster #122 - Affective Empathy Moderates the Relation Between Theory of Mind and Preschoolers' Social Behaviors

• In Event: 1-115 - Poster Session 03
  In Poster Session: PS 03 Section - Moral Development

Integrative Statement

Former studies found inconsistent evidence about the relation between theory of mind (ToM) and preschoolers’ social behaviors. This study suggested that empathy might play a moderation role in this relation. 91 preschoolers (Mage = 53.78 months, SD = 9.638) participated in this study. Their social behaviors (prosocial, aggressive) were assessed by kindergartner teachers. First-order false belief tasks and picture-story tasks were used to measure their ToM and empathy (cognitive and affective). It was found that preschoolers’ affective empathy moderated the relation between ToM and two kinds of social behaviors. When children’s affective empathy was high, there was a positive relation between children’s prosocial behaviors and ToM, and a negative relation between children’s aggressive behaviors and ToM. But these relationships disappeared when children’s affective empathy was low. These results revealed that affective empathy might work as an emotional trigger in preschoolers’ social behaviors. Under a certain level of emotional arousal, children with higher ToM could understand others’ needs better and perform more prosocial behaviors. While for children with lower ToM, they might have more trouble with social information processing and perform more aggressive behaviors driven by emotion. Future studies could explore more about the role of empathy and theory of mind in different subcategories of social behaviors, such as helping, comforting and cooperating under prosocial behaviors, and proactive and reactive aggression under aggressive behaviors.

Authors

• Yiyi Wang, Peking University
  Presenting Author

• Yanjie Su, Peking University
  Non-Presenting Author