Differentiation of Vicariously Induced Emotional Reactions in Children

The purposes of this study were threefold: (a) to determine whether physiological (heart rate), facial, and self-report indices could be used to differentiate between different vicariously induced negative emotional states (i.e., those related conceptually to the study of empathy), (b) to examine developmental differences in the degree of differentiation in the aforementioned indices of emotional response, and (c) to assess the pattern of interrelations among heart rate (HR), facial, and self-report indices of response to emotion-eliciting stimuli. Preschoolers and second graders viewed three films that portrayed situations related to others' emotions of anxiety or apprehension, empathic sadness, and cognitively induced sympathy. Children's HR accelerated during the anxiety film and decelerated during the cognitive-sympathy and sad films. Children's nonphysiological reactions also were highly consistent with the film content. The interrelations among modes of responses were generally consistent with the view that the various indices were positively rather than inversely related. There were also some positive relations between the indices of emotion and a questionnaire measure of empathy. The results are discussed in terms of current work concerning empathy and other emotional responses.