Cheng, Y., Chen, C., & Decety, J. (2014). An EEG/ERP investigation of the development of empathy in early and middle childhood. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 10, 160-169.
The present article explains the formation and development of empathy in children from a neurophysiological point of view.
Cheng, Chen, and Decety (2014) “recorded electroencephalographic event-related potentials” in more than 70 children and young adults (p. 160). These records made authors conclude that with age, emotional arousal decreases, whereas cognitive appraisal, on the contrary, increases. Another significant finding noted in the article is that more mentally mature children are more emphatic, and their behavior is more likely to be prosocial. The paper targets a knowledgeable audience since it contains specific terminology and complicated calculations. The study conducted by Cheng et al. (2014) is highly relevant to the current research because it provides a neurophysiological interpretation of childrens empathy formation and describes which children are more likely to be empathic.
Kutner, L. (2018). How children develop empathy. PsychCentral. Web.
The article written by Kutner (2018) provides an overview of the topic of children’s empathy. The writing’s key message is that empathy is not an inborn quality; it is a skill that children should learn from their parents. The author also emphasizes that empathy is essential because emphatic children are more likely to have high academic results and better cope with various social situations. Additionally, Kutner (2018) gives recommendations on making children of different ages understand other people’s feelings and emotions. The article’s intended audience is parents and people interested in children’s psychology but not specializing in it. This paper is useful for current research because it explains the basics of empathy.
McDonald, N. M., & Messinger, D. S. (2011). The development of empathy: How, when, and why. Moral Behavior and Free Will: A Neurobiological and Philosophical Approach, 341-368.
The article by McDonald and Messinger (2011) investigates the development of empathy in children. More precisely, the authors are interested in how various biological and environmental processes affect the formation of the ability to feel and understand the emotions of other people. McDonald and Messinger (2011) discovered that a child’s ability to become an empathic adult depends on genetics, temperament, brain structure, and relations between parents and children. The article is written so that even people without a broad background in psychology could understand its critical ideas. Still, the intended audience is specialists who work with children and other scholars. This work is relevant for the research since it explains which factors influence the development of a child’s empathy.
Rock, E. A., Hammond, M., & Rasmussen, S. (2002). A school-based program to teach children empathy and bully prevention. American Counselling Association. Web.
The current article’s goal is to present a program that teachers could apply to make children more emphatic and, hence, prevent bullying. The paper contains a detailed description of the activities that were practiced by children. These activities include role-playing, discussion, and creative work in teams. After the conduction of the program, the frequency of cases of bullying dropped by 73 percent. The paper’s primary audience is teachers and schools’ administrative personnel because it is a clue on how to improve the social environment at school and prevent bullying. This article is essential for the research paper because it describes methods that could teach children to be emphatic.
Yan, Z., Pei, M., & Su, Y. (2017). Children’s empathy and their perception and evaluation of facial pain expression: An eye-tracking study. Frontiers in Psychology. Web.
The article of Yan, Pei, and Su (2017) focuses on the examination of the relationship between children’s “response to facial pain expression” and empathy (para. 1). The most critical finding of Yan et al. (2017) is that the more empathic a child is, the better he would identify how much pain feels a person he sees. From one point of view, these findings seem rather evident; however, the key point here is that they are based on empirical tests. The target audience of the article is psychologists and scholars who investigate the issue of children’s empathy. The paper is relevant for this research because it suggests specific ways to measure empathy and explains the difference in more and less emphatic children’s reactions.
References
Cheng, Y., Chen, C., & Decety, J. (2014). An EEG/ERP investigation of the development of empathy in early and middle childhood. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 10, 160-169.
Kutner, L. (2018). How children develop empathy. PsychCentral. Web.
McDonald, N. M., & Messinger, D. S. (2011). The development of empathy: How, when, and why. Moral Behavior and Free Will: A Neurobiological and Philosophical Approach, 341-368.
Rock, E. A., Hammond, M., & Rasmussen, S. (2002). School based program to teach children empathy and bully prevention. American Counselling Association. Web.
Yan, Z., Pei, M., & Su, Y. (2017). Children’s empathy and their perception and evaluation of facial pain expression: An eye tracking study. Frontiers in Psychology. Web.