The present study examined affective and cognitive empathy in preschool
children. Seventeen children, ages three to five years, were given The Young
Children's Empathy Measure to determine their understanding of empathy.
Participants were then read a children's story and given the empathy measure
again, to see if they expressed more empathy after hearing about a sympathetic
protagonist. A second baseline score was obtained one week after the story was
administered. On measures of cognitive anger, mean scores increased
significantly after the story was heard. Other scores increased after hearing
the story, indicating a trend that storytelling is an effective method of
increasing expressions of empathy. Affective empathy is defined as being able to
know about and understand another person's feelings without having experienced
the same situation (Feshbach, 1975). Children as young as three years of age
have been shown to exhibit appropriate empathy toward others and to demonstrate
correct understanding of others' emotions (Gove & Keating, 1979; Poresky,
1990). Although young children can correctly express empathy toward others,
empathic abilities do appear to increase as one grows older and is able to view
the world in a less egocentric manner (Piaget, 1966). Numerous studies have
illustrated a strong positive correlation between age and ability to empathize.
Children between five and six years of age show many more appropriate responses
on empathy measures than children closer to three years of age (Gove &
Keating, 1979; Poresky, 1990). This trend is not exclusive to the earliest years
of development. Bryant (1982) administered a pencil and paper empathy scale to
first, fourth, and seventh graders and found that seventh graders were more
empathetic than the other two groups. Olweus and Endresen (1998) conducted a
two-year longitudinal study of 13 to 16 year olds and found a steady increase in
empathy as they aged. Higher levels of empathy in children have also been
correlated with the development of many positive behaviors at all ages. Seja and
Russ (1999) discovered a strong correlation between high levels of fantasy play
and empathy in first and second graders. This trend indicates that being able to
vicariously understand the emotions of others is related to creativity and
imagination. The ability to empathize is also correlated with increased
prosocial behavior and emotional expressiveness and insight (Roberts &
Strayer, 1996). Empathy also appears to increase a child's comfort level and
openness around other people, and decreases the physical distance they place
between themselves and others (Strayer & Roberts, 1997). Creativity,
imagination, prosocial behavior, emotional expressiveness and insight, and
increased personal openness are certainly positive behaviors to encourage in
young children, as is empathy itself. Kalliopuska and Tiitinen (1991) developed
two programs for nurturing empathy in six and seven year old children over a 4
month period. One program emphasized empathic development through music,
combined with physical activity and art. The students learned songs about caring
for animals and friendship. The other activities included songs and active
games, sculpting clay images of classmates and reflecting their emotions, and
playing games about consoling others. In the second program, empathy was
developed using drama and stories. Children played the roles of teachers and
students enacting an animal's first day at school. Students also used puppets to
act out stories about making friends, and later discussed the stories and the
emotions of their characters. Both programs were highly effective in teaching
empathy; the children in the test groups showed significant increases in empathy
and prosociability after the 4-month program relative to children in the control
group. In the condition emphasizing stories and drama, children showed an even
greater increase in these behaviors. These results indicate that empathy can be
consciously taught, and that utilizing drama and stories, where children can
take on and see and hear the role of another, is a very effective method of
teaching empathic behavior. There is further evidence to indicate that the use
of stories is an effective way of teaching empathy to young children. Kagan and
Knudson (1982) conducted a study in which five to seven year olds were played
tapes of adults involved in happy, angry, anxious, and sad interactions. The
same participants were also told stories about children experiencing the same
four emotions. Children showed significantly higher levels of affective empathy
toward the children in stories than the adults on tape. This lends further
support to the idea that children respond more empathetically to characters in
stories than in other media. The results also suggest that children are more
empathetic to other children than toward adults, possibly because it is easier
to identify with the feelings of a peer whose emotions they are more likely to
share. Children also showed more empathy toward protagonists who experienced
misfortune than they did toward those in more everyday circumstances (Strayer
& Roberts, 1997). The purpose of the present study was to measure levels of
empathy in preschool-aged children when storytelling was incorporated, and to
compare these levels to empathy exhibited when storytelling was not used. Where
previous research used stories as an integral part of empathy measures, in the
current study storytelling was not directly involved in the empathy measure.
Because most young children are simply read stories and not consciously taught
empathy along with them, this seemed a more realistic model for testing the
effectiveness of storytelling on a child's affective empathy. Based on previous
research, it was hypothesized that children would exhibit higher levels of
empathy after hearing a story with a sympathetic, school-aged protagonist than
when simply asked questions from an empathy measure. Method Participants
Participants were 17 children between three and five years of age (12 boys and 5
girls, mean age 4 years, 5 months). Participants were obtained through a
preschool affiliated with Earlham College, a local community center, and through
contacting faculty, staff, and community members by word of mouth. All parents
and guardians were told all details of the study in a letter in advance, and all
children participated with their parent's knowledge and written consent. Parents
were provided with the results at the conclusion of the experiment. Materials
Participants were read a picture book, Hooway for Wodney Wat, (Lester, 1999).
The children were also given the Young Children's Empathy Measure (Appendix A),
developed by Robert Poresky (1990). The Young Children's Empathy Measure (YCEM)
consisted of four verbally presented vignettes, each designed to elicit one of
four emotions: sadness, fear, anger and happiness. The children were then asked
two questions after each vignette. "How does the child feel?" was used
to measure each child's cognitive perspective, and "How do you feel about
this?" was used to measure each child's affective perspective. Procedure
The children were each visited individually three times by the experimenter.
Visits were conducted either in the child's preschool or home, and the same
location was used in each session. In the first session, the YCEM was
administered and answers were recorded, to establish a baseline empathy score
for each child. The second session took place on a different day, and the
experimenter read the story to the child. Immediately afterward, the YCEM was
administered a second time, and a second score was recorded. The story was not
discussed in relation to the YCEM. The third session took place 1 week after the
second, to assess whether there would be any long-term effects of the story on
empathy. The story was not mentioned by the experimenter, and the YCEM was
administered a third time, and a third score was recorded. Results Mean empathy
scores for baseline, immediate, and delayed test conditions are shown in Table
1. Higher means indicate more appropriate expressions of empathy. One-way
repeated measure ANOVAS were used to analyze the differences between the
different experimental conditions for each vignette. For all items, means were
higher for cognitive than for affective empathy. Storytelling produced a
significant effect in cognitive anger over the three conditions (F (df 2,32) =
4.216, p * .05). Post hoc paired t-tests (alpha set at .017 according to
Bonferroni procedure) revealed a significant increase in empathy scores from the
baseline (M = 3.0588, SD = .5557) to the immediate test condition (M = 3.4706,
SD = .5145, p * .017). The same test also revealed marginal significance in the
change of mean scores from the story condition to the second baseline test (M =
3.1765, SD = .3930, p = .056). These results indicate that storytelling did
increase the empathy expressed by participants. No significant changes in mean
scores were found in the remaining seven questionnaire items, although an
interesting trend was revealed. There appeared to be a further effect of
storytelling for several more questionnaire items aside from affective anger.
For cognitive sadness, affective sadness, and affective fear, mean scores
increased from the baseline to the immediate condition, although not
significantly (Table 1). These increased means indicate a definite trend of more
appropriate expressions of empathy when storytelling is employed. In three of
the eight questionnaire measures, cognitive fear, as well as both affective and
cognitive happiness, mean scores decreased from the baseline to the immediate
condition, although not significantly (Table 1). This trend is interesting
because it indicates a possible negative effect of storytelling. For the
remaining item, affective anger, means remained the same from the baseline to
the immediate condition. No effects of age or sex were found. Discussion The
hypothesis in this study was not strongly supported. In one half of the
questionnaire items, scores increased as an effect of storytelling, one
significantly. In three of the four remaining items, scores dropped from the
baseline to the story condition. It is difficult to determine if these trends
indicate whether or not storytelling has an effect on children's empathy, and
whether it is positive or negative. There are several possible explanations for
a decrease in empathy scores after hearing a story. The testing conditions were
not always the most appropriate for reading to a child. At times, the test was
administered in a large room with several other children, who often interrupted
and asked questions about what was taking place. This might have increased the
participant's distractability or reduced the attention span, which in turn could
reduce the impact and effectiveness of storytelling. A more ideal testing
environment would be one that is quiet and the full attention of the
experimenter and the child can be given to the story being read and the test
being administered. When working with preschool aged participants, it is also
important to note that their logic is not always the same as that of an adult,
and that it is quite variable. When asked, "how does a child who just lost
its best friend feel?", a young child may respond, "like he couldn't
go." This answer might very well make perfect sense to the child, but it
becomes difficult for the experimenter to determine what sort of emotion this
is, and how it might be coded for data analysis. During the next session,
however, the same child may be thinking in a different way and give the response
that is considered most appropriate, "sad." In the mind of the child,
however, these two seemingly different answers may mean exactly the same
emotion. The variability in logic and verbal expression of young children can
thus greatly effect the responses given on a questionnaire. In the present
study, it was interesting to examine the children's understanding of affective
versus cognitive empathy. Participants consistently demonstrated a better
understanding of what another child's emotion would be than what their own would
be in response to the other child's situation. The question "how does this
child feel?" leaves much less room for interpretation that the question,
"how do you feel about that?" It is possible that the latter could be
interpreted as, "how do you feel about being in that situation?" or
"how do you feel about the child's involvement in that situation?" If
interpreted the first way, the child must simply put him or herself in a
situation which he or she has most likely experienced, which is much more
concrete, and easier to do at this young age. The question becomes more
difficult when interpret the second way, which requires the child to relate to
an imaginary child in an imaginary situation. Another interesting trend was
which emotions appeared to be best understood. Children consistently mistook
anger for sadness, in response to the vignette, "a child really wants to go
out but is not allowed." The change in means from the baseline to the story
was significant, but mean scores were generally lower for anger than for
sadness, fear, and happiness. This indicates that young children are less aware
of anger than other basic emotions, that it is more difficult for them to
articulate, or possibly that they equate it with sadness. Children were most
likely to correctly identify sadness and happiness consistently, which possibly
indicates that they are more aware of these emotions, and are better able to
verbalize them. There was an indication that hearing a story with a sympathetic
protagonist does actually lead a child to express more empathy. If administered
to a larger sample in a more consistent and appropriate environment, it is quite
possible a significant effect of storytelling could be found. In the present
study, no attempt was made to consciously emphasize and teach empathy along with
storytelling. In future research, storytelling could be proven more effective
when combined with a deliberate teaching of empathy, which has also been shown
to be highly effective. Future research could also examine the effects of
different types of storybooks, with different types of characters and
situations, and how this might change a young child's expressions of empathy
toward others. References Bryant, B. (1982). An index of empathy for children
and adolescents. Child Development, 53, 413-425. Feshbach, N. D. (1975). Empathy
in children: some theoretical and empirical considerations. Counseling
Psychologist, 5, 25-30. Gove, F., & Keating, D. (1979). Empathic role-taking
precursors. Developmental Psychology, 15(6), 594-600. Kagan, S., & Knudson,
K. (1982). Relationship of empathy and affective role-taking in young children.
The Journal of Genetic Psychology, 141, 149-150. Kalliopuska, M., & Tiitinen,
U. (1991). Influence of two developmental programmes on the empathy and
prosociability of preschool children. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 72, 323-328.
Lester, H. (1999). Hooway for wodney wat. United States: Houghton Mifflin.
Olweus, D., & Endresen, I. (1998). The importance of sex-of-stimulus object:
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Reports, 66, 931-936. Roberts, W., & Strayer, J. (1996). Empathy, emotional
expressiveness, and prosocial behavior. Child Development, 67, 449-470. Seja,
A., & Russ, S. (1999). Children's fantasy play and emotional understanding.
Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, 28(2), 269-277. Strayer, J., &
Roberts, W. (1997). Children's personal distance and their empathy: indices of
interpersonal closeness. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 20(3),
485- 503. Appendix A The Young Children's Empathy Measure Robert H. Poresky 1.
Sadness: "A child has just lost its best friend." How does this child
feel? How do you feel about this? 2. Fear: "A child is being chased by a
big, nasty monster." How does this child feel? How do you feel about this?
3. Anger: "A child really wants to go out but is not allowed." How
does this child feel? How do you feel about this? 4. Happiness: "A child is
going to its most favorite park to play." How does this child feel? How do
you feel about this? Scoring: 4 = exact match to intended emotion 3 = similar
emotion 2 = some emotion 1 = nonemotional response 0 = no emotion