The case for teaching empathy: Why we shouldn’t expect empathy to “just emerge”

© 2009 Gwen Dewar, Ph.D., all rights reserved

Can’t we assume that empathy will emerge automatically, as part of the developmental process?

After all, even babies show signs of empathy.

For instance, experiments confirm that newborn babies are more likely to cry if they hear recordings of other infants in distress. And normally-developing infants begin to show empathic concern for their family members between the age of 12 and 24 months (Zahn-Wexler et al 1992).

But that doesn’t mean that full-blown empathy and empathic concern will “just emerge” if parents do nothing.

Our sense of empathy is heavily influenced by experience. A 21st century pet lover might feel more empathy for her dog than an upper-class Athenian of the 4th century B.C. would have felt for his wife (or his slave).

In this article, I review the evidence for teaching empathy. Can caregivers make a difference? I think so. As I note below, we have many good reasons to suspect that parenting influences the development of empathy. I’ll go over these points:

• Human empathy involves a whole package of skills and social beliefs. Most of these must be learned.

• Numerous studies have reported a link between parenting practices and empathy in children.

• Genetics might explain some of the differences between individuals. But experiments demonstrate that adults can learn to be more sensitive and responsive. If grown-ups can learn empathy, why can’t kids?

In addition, I offer these ten tips for teaching empathy.

Teaching empathy: What kids need to learn

There is actually neurological evidence for this sort of phenomenon. When kids see other people getting hurt, their brains respond in a characteristic way. The same neural circuits that process first-hand experiences of pain are also activated by images of pain in others.

But there is more to human empathy than merely sharing another creature’s pain.

Neuroscientists Jean Decety and Philip L. Jackson argue that human empathy requires several components (Decety and Jackson 2004).

In addition to sharing feelings, the empathic person also needs to be capable of

• A sense of self-awareness and the ability to distinguish one’s own feelings from the feelings of others. When Emma watches Sam wince, she feels his pain. But does she understand the source of her discomfort? If Emma lacks self-reflection, she might not recognize that Sam is the one in real trouble.

• Taking another person’s perspective. Emma loves broccoli, Sam hates it. So how does Sam feel when he’s told he can’t leave the table until he finishes his broccoli? It might be hard for Emma to recognize Sam’s feelings without understanding his point of view.

• Being able to regulate one’s own emotional responses. It’s not pleasant to witness someone else’s distress. If empathy were merely about “sharing feelings,” then, we might expect empathic people to withdraw from creatures in distress. To show empathic concern, or sympathy, Emma needs to control her own responses to Sam’s pain.

• They are on familiar terms with the victim

• They perceive similarities between themselves and the victim

• They have experienced the victim’s circumstances themselves

And our willingness to show empathic concern is tempered by our moral and political beliefs. Who deserves our empathic concern?

Societies offer different answers to this question. Very often, the answers are about who’s considered “one of us.” A recent survey of preindustrial societies found that people who feel strong loyalty to their own social group are more willing to consider violence against outsiders. They are also more likely to enjoy warfare (Cohen et al 2006).

People may also disagree about what situations demand empathy.

For instance, young children frequently fail to respond to the speech of others, even when they are old enough to understand what’s being said. These kids are developmentally normal. They just don’t think it’s necessary to acknowledge other people.

Judging from my own experiences in the United States, some American parents seem content to let these children remain unresponsive.

But things may be different in Japan. Japanese culture stresses omoiyari, or showing sensitivity to others. Children are encouraged to attend and cater to the needs of other people. And mothers don’t let their children get away with ignoring other people.

If a toddler fails to respond to the request or question of another person, the mother repeats it. She also conveys a sense of urgency to the child. The snubbed person needs acknowledgement…right away (Clancy 1986).

Moms may even put words in the person’s mouth, as when a child accidentally hurts another person and fails to apologize: “Grandma says, ‘Ouch, ouch!’”

Or consider a situation in which most parents don’t want their kids to be swayed by empathy: Your teenager gets involved with Joe, an emotionally disturbed drug addict who is desperate for money. Should she help Joe steal—-because she feels sorry for him?

So the development of empathy—and our beliefs about the people and situations that deserve our empathic concern--are influenced by a variety of factors.

But the key point is this: Almost all of these factors are subject to learning, and, therefore, to the influence of parents:

• Parents can encourage children to reflect on their own feelings, and distinguish these from the feelings of other people.

• Parents can encourage kids to imagine the perspectives of other people.

• Parents can teach children how to soothe themselves and “bounce back” from negative emotions

• Parents can teach empathy by humanizing and personalizing the victims of suffering

• Parents can teach their children when it is appropriate to use empathy

Sounds plausible, right? But is there evidence that such practices are effective ways of teaching empathy?

Does parenting make a difference?

The evidence for teaching empathy

But the correlations are consistent with the idea that parenting makes a difference. Some examples:

• Sensitive, responsive parenting and secure attachments. Studies tracking children from an early age have reported that kids with secure attachment relationships show greater empathy, stronger emotional coping skills and more developed moral sensibilities (Elicker et al 1992; Easterbrooks et al 2000; Kerns et al 2007; Kochanska and Murray 2000). Secure attachments are promoted by sensitive, responsive parenting practices, so it seems plausible that such practices contribute to the development of empathy.

• Emotional “coaching.” Parents who help their kids cope with negative emotions (by discussing them in a sympathetic, problem-solving-oriented way) have kids who are friendlier and more empathic. Parents who tend minimize or “brush off” their children’s emotions have kids who are less socially competent (Davidov and Grusec 1996; Denham 1997; Denham et al 1997; Denham 1989; Denham and Grout 1993; Eisenberg et al 1996).

• Rational, explanation-based discipline. An American study has reported that parents who used inductive discipline (an approach that emphasizes the reasons for rules and the logical consequences for bad behavior) have kids who show more concern for other people and more remorse for committing misdeeds (Krevan and Gibbs 1996).

• Limiting your child’s exposure to high-intensity displays of negative emotion. A study of American 9-year olds found that boys were more physiologically responsive to empathy-inducing images when their mothers expressed low- or moderate levels of negative emotions at home. Boys with mothers who expressed high levels of negative emotions were less well-adjusted (Liew et al 2003).

• Oxytocin. Experiments report that adult men who inhaled oxytocin (the “cuddle” hormone) performed better on tests requiring them to “read the emotions” of other people by looking at their eyes (Domes et al 2008). Studies suggest that both males and females produce their own oxytocin when they are engaged in pleasant social interactions—including “small talk” and hugs. So kids who grow up in “oxytocin-friendly” environments might have an easier time learning to interpret nonverbal cues of emotion.

What about genetics?

It’s easy to imagine how that would work. Presumably, sensitive, responsive parenting is more appealing to parents who are more empathic to begin with.

So the correlation between parenting style and child empathy might reflect the influence of shared genes.

But even if genetics explains some of the differences between individuals (and I think they probably do), it’s clear that environmental factors play a role in the way that people express empathy.

If this weren’t true, then we couldn’t train adults to become more sensitive and responsive. But we can.

In one study, medical students took part in a role-playing game that simulated the special problems of the elderly. For example, to recreate the experience of having cataracts, the students wore goggles covered with transparent tape. To recreate the loss of fine motor coordination, the students wore heavy rubber gloves (Varkey et al 2006).

The results? After the experiment, participants became significantly more empathic and caring for real elderly patients.

This doesn’t mean that the same approach to teaching empathy will work for all ages. Young children don’t have the same capacity for perspective-taking that older kids do. Nor are they capable of the same degree of self-control. So we need to adjust our efforts according to the child’s stage of development.

But, as mentioned above, most normally-developing kids start showing empathic concern for their family members before they are two years old. I suspect these young minds are ready to learn a lot about the feelings of others.

More information: Evidence-based tips for teaching empathy

References: The argument for teaching empathy

Cohen TR, Montoya RM, and Insko CA. 2006. Group morality and intergroup relations: cross-cultural and experimental evidence. Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2006 Nov;32(11):1559-72.

Davidov M and Grusec JE. 2006. Untangling the links of parental responsiveness to distress and warmth to child outcomes. Child Dev. 77(1):44-58.

Decety J and Jackson PL. 2004. The functional architecture of human empathy. Behavioral and cognitive neuroscience reviews 3(2):71-100.

Denham SA. 1997. “When I have a bad dream, my Mommy holds me”: Preschoolers conceptions of emotions, parental socialization, and emotional competence. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 20: 301-319.

Denham, SA, Mitchell-Copeland J, Strandberg K, Auerbach S and Blair K. 1997. Parental contributions to preschoolers' emotional competence: Direct and indirect effects. Motivation and Emotion 21:65–86.

Denham SA 1989. Maternal affect and toddlers social-emotional competence. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 59: 368-376. Denham SA and Grout L. 1993. Socialization of emotion: Pathway to preschoolers affect regulation. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior 17: 215-227.

Domes G, Heinrichs M, Michel A, Berger C, and Herpertz SC. 2007. Oxytocin improves "mind-reading" in humans. Biol Psychiatry. 61(6):731-3.

Elicker J, Englund M and Sroufe LA 1992. Predicting peer competence and peer relationships in childhood from early parent-child relationships. In RD Parke and GW Ladd (eds), Family-Peer Relationships: Modes of Linkage. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Easterbrooks MA, Biesecker G, and Lyons-Ruth K. 2000. Infancy predictors of emotional availability in middle childhood: the roles of attachment security and maternal depressive symptomatology. Attach Hum Dev. 2(2):170-87.

Eisenberg N, Fabes RA, Murphy BC. 1996. Parents' reactions to children's negative emotions: relations to children's social competence and comforting behavior. Child Dev. 67(5):2227-47.

Kerns KA, Abraham MM, Schlegelmilch A, and Morgan TA. 2007.Mother-child attachment in later middle childhood: assessment approaches and associations with mood and emotion regulation. Attach Hum Dev. 9(1):33-53.

Krevans J and Gibbs JC. 1996. Parents’ use of inductive discipline: relations to children’s empathy and prosocial behavior. Child Development, 67: 3263-77.

Liew J, Eisenberg N, Losoya SH, Fabes RA, Guthrie IK, and Murphy BC. 2003. Children's physiological indices of empathy and their socioemotional adjustment: does caregivers' expressivity matter? J Fam Psychol. 17(4):584-97.

Varkey P, Chutka DS, and Lesnick TG. 2006. The Aging Game: improving medical students' attitudes toward caring for the elderly. J Am Med Dir Assoc. 7(4):224-9.

Zahn-Wexler C Radke-Yarrow M, Wagner E and Chapman M.1992. Development of concern for others. Developmental psychology 28(1): 126-136.

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