Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

Aim of investigation: There is evidence that children's empathy for pain develops differently than their empathy for sadness (Bandstra et al., 2011). Furthermore, children exposed to another child's sadness have shown increased prosocial behaviour compared to controls (Williams et al., 2014). The current study aimed to assess the differential effects of empathy for pain and sadness on children's prosocial behaviour. Methods: 77 children (Mage = 4.39 years, SD = 0.81) were randomly assigned to watch one of three videos: a girl in pain (pain induction), a girl who is sad (sadness induction), or a girl with a neutral emotion (control). Afterwards, participants rated pain (Faces Pain Scale - Revised; FPS-R) and affect (Facial Affective Scale; FAS) for themselves and the girl in the video. They then participated in a validated sticker-sharing task, choosing how many stickers they would keep for themselves and how many they would give to the girl in the video. Results: A one-way ANOVA revealed no significant difference in prosocial behaviour based on video exposure, F(2, 74) = 1.22, p = .302. Subsequent one-way ANOVAs revealed no differences in FAS ratings for self, F(2, 72) = 0.48, p = .620, and FPS-R ratings for self, F(2, 73) = 0.34, p = .712, based on video exposure. These analyses revealed that the emotion induction videos did not induce their appropriate emotion within participants. Conclusions: These findings suggest that exposing a young child to another child's pain or sadness did not differentially affect prosocial behaviour. The fact that participants exposed to another child's pain or sadness did not experience these emotions within themselves suggests a lack of empathy, and might explain the absence of prosocial behaviour. More research is needed in the study of pain-related empathy in children, and how this differs from empathy towards another child's sadness.