Skip navigation.
Home
Sat Jul 4 20:06:11 2009 | [Write for us] | [Subscribe to RSS] | [Advertise with us] [Editor's Blog]

How Do Kids Develop Empathy?

Like most adults, kids too have the natural caring instincts and empathize with those in pain, a new research suggests.

Empathy, the capacity to recognize or understand another's state of mind or emotion often characterized as the ability to "put oneself into another's shoes". It is also described metaphorically as an emotional kind of resonance or mirroring.

The study conducted by the researchers at the University of Chicago, used the functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) scans to scale their responses on seeing others in to pain.

17 children (nine girls and eight boys) aged between 7 and 12 were shown animations of people experiencing pain, either received accidentally or inflicted intentionally.

The animations typically ranged from something accidentally slipping from someone’s’ hands to someone intentionally stepping over someone’s foot, all situations causing pain.

While undergoing Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) scans, children too showed similar brain activity as adults.

In situations were pain was accidental, the brain activity in the areas involved in pain processing sparked, while upon seeing situations where pain was intentional, regions of the brain involved in social interaction and moral reasoning also lit-up suggesting that the children realized the person was being wrongly treated.

"This study is the first to examine in young children both the neural response to pain in others and the impact of someone causing pain to someone else," said Jean Decety, Professor in the Departments of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Chicago.

Researchers conclude that the ‘empathy’ was not entirely the product of nurturing or good parenting; instead kids are born with it. Studying empathy in children could explain bullying or other types of anti-social behavior, researchers hope.

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
 
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Glossary terms will be automatically marked with links to their descriptions. If there are certain phrases or sections of text that should be excluded from glossary marking and linking, use the special markup, [no-glossary] ... [/no-glossary]. Additionally, these HTML elements will not be scanned: a, abbr, acronym, code, pre.

More information about formatting options

CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.

For daily updates in your mailbox Subscribe for free via email, or grab our feed.
 

User login

I n   F o c u s
Tobacco has the potential to harm your health in more ways than one. Here are seven reasons to stay away from tobacco.
tobacco.jpg

Tobacco is bad for your health. Whatever be the method of consuming tobacco- fresh, processed or in the form of smoke, your health will be harmed significantly.

    Regular practice of certain yoga positions (asanas) can give tremendous boost to your sex life.
    beach_yoga_aw.jpg

    According to the Dec. 3, 2008 issue of the Journal of Sexual Magazine, yoga improved levels of arousal in sexually unsatisfied women. It helped them achieve better orgasm. The practice was also found to be effective in treating premature ejaculation in men.

      Making a man fall in love with you is rather easy, long as you know which buttons to push. Here’s a little tutorial for the clueless girls.
      lman.jpg

      You have just met your Mr. Right and with all your womanly intuition you feel that he is the one you have been waiting for. You are excited, can`t stop smiling and your cheeks turn red the moment he enters.

        LiveZilla Live Help