This investigation is to examine a series of related questions concerning young children's development of empathy, utilizing data from three independently conducted studies. Broadly stated, these questions consider: 1) the role that gender and gender-specific parenting practices may play in the development of empathy in young children, and 2) the differences and similarities that may be observed in empathic development among children living in low income families across three subcultures within the U. S., namely European-American, Mexican-American, and African-American. The objective is to enable data analyses that elucidate the developmental pathways of males and females in relation to earlier emotional development, parenting experiences, family ecology, and ethnicity by scoring videotaped responses of children to distress simulations that were identically conducted in the two of the three studies. This project extends knowledge of operant processes in emotional development of males and females including socialization of empathy. It will provide new insights into cross-ethnic similarities and differences in early emotional development. Each study makes a unique contribution to the investigation of empathic development.
The three studies are longitudinal, beginning observational assessments of children's emotion regulation as young as age six months and assessing mothers' attitudes and the ecology of her living circumstances as early as pregnancy. Observation of empathy began as early as 18 months. Two studies are part of a program of research on the impact of early nurse home visitation on family development. The first study, the New Mothers Study was conducted in Memphis, TN, where the enrolled sample of 739 women was almost entirely African-American. The second study, Home Visitation 2000 (HV2000) was conducted in Denver, CO where two-thirds of the 735 enrolled women were either Mexican-American or African-American. All women in both samples had low incomes at the time of enrollment, during pregnancy, and were randomly assigned to treatment and control conditions.
Observations of the Memphis children were gathered when they completed kindergarten; their responses to story beginnings that permitted the incorporation of empathic themes were videotaped. In Memphis, questions concerning the antecedents of empathy will focus on the role of gender in the experience of African-American children in relation to early and concurrent contextual risk, empathic maternal attitudes, and maternal reports of temperament and behavior problems.
Observations of the HV2000 children's response to empathy-eliciting distress simulations occurred at 21, 24, and 48 months of age. Observations of the children's reactivity to laboratory-based emotion challenges were conducted at 6, 15, and 24 months of age. Questions concerning antecedents of empathic development in HV2000 will concentrate on the role of gender and ethnicity in continuities in early emotion regulation styles with later empathic responses. In addition, questions will be addressed concerning early antecedents in contextual risk factors, mother-child relationship, and maternal report of temperament and behavior problems.
The third study includes a low-income sample of 309 children enrolled before their first birthday in a study of Early Head Start (EHS) interventions. The ethnic sample distribution is similar to that of HV2000. Observations of empathic responses to distress simulations were conducted at 18, 30, and 36 months of age. Observed emotion regulation began when children were eight months old utilizing similar procedures as in the HV2000 study and were repeated at 18 and 30 months. A unique opportunity of this study is to replicate findings from the HV2000 sample and examine the role of two additional features: 1) the role of family routines and 2) early language skills. In all three studies, treatment status will be incorporated into analytic models and retained as a factor as needed.
The products of the proposed investigations will include a series of peer-reviewed papers that consider findings from each of these samples independently and a final monograph in which the material is synthesized across studies.