Morality and empathy are fundamental components of human nature across cultures. However, the wealth of empirical findings from developmental, behavioral, and social neuroscience demonstrates a ...complex relation between morality and empathy. At times, empathy guides moral judgment, yet other times empathy can interfere with it. To better understand such relations, we propose abandoning the catchall term of empathy in favor of more precise concepts, such as emotional sharing, empathic concern, and affective perspective-taking.
Despite cultural and individual variation, humans are a judgmental bunch 1. There is accumulating evidence for early social and moral evaluation as shown by research with infants and children ...documenting the notion that some behaviors are perceived as right and others are perceived as wrong 2. Moreover, social interactions are governed by a concern for fairness and others’ well-being 3, 4. However, although generosity increases between infancy and late childhood, it is less clear what mechanisms guide this change 5. Early predispositions toward prosociality are thought to arise in concert with the social and cultural environment, developing into adult morality, a complex incorporation of emotional, motivational, and cognitive processes 6, 7. Using EEG combined with eye tracking and behavioral sharing, we investigated, for the first time, the temporal neurodynamics of implicit moral evaluation in 3- to 5-year-old children. Results show distinct early automatic attentional (EPN) and later cognitively controlled (N2, LPP) patterns of neural response while viewing characters engaging in helping and harming behaviors. Importantly, later (LPP), but not early (EPN), waveforms predicted actual generosity. These results shed light on theories of moral development by documenting the respective contribution of automatic and cognitive neural processes underpinning social evaluation and directly link these neural computations to prosocial behavior in children.
•Temporal dynamics of morality in 3–5 year olds are examined with EEG and eye tracking•Distinct early and later controlled waveforms in viewing helping and harming scenes•Later (LPP), but not early (EPN), waveforms predicted actual generosity•These results shed important light on theories of moral development
Prosocial behavior emerges early in development, and young children possess capacities for social and moral evaluations. In this study, Cowell and Decety explored their neural underpinnings in 3–5 year olds and how these predict actual generosity, exemplifying the potential of integrating development and neuroscience in refining moral theories.
The nature and underpinnings of infants’ seemingly complex, thirdparty, social evaluations remain highly contentious. Theoretical perspectives oscillate between rich and lean interpretations of the ...same expressed preferences. Although some argue that infants and toddlers possess a “moral sense” based on core knowledge of the social world, others suggest that social evaluations are hierarchical in nature and the product of an integration of rudimentary general processes such as attention allocation and approach and avoidance. Moreover, these biologically prepared minds interact in social environments that include significant variation, which are likely to impact early social evaluations and behavior. The present study examined the neural underpinnings of and precursors to moral sensitivity in infants and toddlers (n= 73, ages 12–24 mo) through a series of interwovenmeasures, combining multiple levels of analysis including electrophysiological, eye-tracking, behavioral, and socioenvironmental. Continuous EEG and time-locked event-related potentials (ERPs) and gaze fixation were recorded while children watched characters engaging in prosocial and antisocial actions in two different tasks. All children demonstrated a neural differentiation in both spectral EEG power densitymodulations and time-locked ERPs when perceiving prosocial or antisocial agents. Time-locked neural differences predicted children’s preference for prosocial characters and were influenced by parental values regarding justice and fairness. Overall, this investigation casts light on the fundamental nature of moral cognition, including its underpinnings in general processes such as attention and approach–withdrawal, providing plausible mechanisms of early change and a foundation for forward movement in the field of developmental social neuroscience.
Growing evidence from developmental psychology and social neuroscience emphasizes the importance of third-party harm aversion for constructing morality. A sensitivity to interpersonal harm emerges ...very early in ontogeny, as reflected in both the capacity for implicit social evaluation and an aversion for antisocial agents. Yet it does not necessarily entail avoidance toward inflicting pain to others. Later, an understanding that harmful actions cause suffering emerges, followed by an integration of rules that can depend on social contexts and cultures. These developmental findings build on a burgeoning literature, which suggests that the fundamental nature of moral and social cognition, including their motivational and hedonic value, lies in general computational processes such as attention, approach-avoidance, social valuation, and decision making rather than in fully distinct, dedicated neural regions for morality. Bridging the gap between cognition and behaviors and the requisite affective, motivational, and cognitive mechanisms, a developmental neuroscience approach enriches our understanding of the emergence of morality.
Young children have long been known to act selfishly and gradually appear to become more generous across middle childhood. While this apparent change has been well documented, the underlying ...mechanisms supporting this remain unclear. The current study examined the role of early theory of mind and executive functioning in facilitating sharing in a large sample (N = 98) of preschoolers. Results reveal a curious relation between early false-belief understanding and sharing behavior. Contrary to many commonsense notions and predominant theories, competence in this ability is actually related to less sharing. Thus, the relation between developing theory of mind and sharing may not be as straightforward as it seems in preschool age children. It is precisely the children who can engage in theory of mind that decide to share less with others.
In the past decade, a flurry of empirical and theoretical research on morality and empathy has taken place, and interest and usage in the media and the public arena have increased. At times, in both ...popular culture and academia, morality and empathy are used interchangeably, and quite often the latter is considered to play a foundational role for the former. In this article, we argue that although there is a relationship between morality and empathy, it is not as straightforward as apparent at first glance. Moreover, it is critical to distinguish among the different facets of empathy (emotional sharing, empathie concern, and perspective taking), as each uniquely influences moral cognition and predicts differential outcomes in moral behavior. Empirical evidence and theories from evolutionary biology as well as developmental, behavioral, and affective and social neuroscience are comprehensively integrated in support of this argument. The wealth of findings illustrates a complex and equivocal relationship between morality and empathy. The key to understanding such relations is to be more precise on the concepts being used and, perhaps, abandoning the muddy concept of empathy.
Human social preferences are the product of gene-culture coevolution, and rely on predispositions that emerge early in development. These social preferences encompasse distinct motivations, ...mechanisms, and behaviors, that facilitate social cohesion and cooperation. Developmental social neuroscience critically contributes in elucidating the proximate mechanisms involved in social decision-making and prosociality, and their gradual maturation in interaction with the social and cultural environment.
This developmental neuroscience study examined the electrophysiological responses (EEG and ERPs) associated with perspective taking and empathic concern in preschool children, as well as their ...relation to parental empathy dispositions and children's own prosocial behavior. Consistent with a body of previous studies using stimuli depicting somatic pain in both children and adults, larger early (~200 ms) ERPs were identified when perceiving painful versus neutral stimuli. In the slow wave window (~800 ms), a significant interaction of empathy condition and stimulus type was driven by a greater difference between painful and neutral images in the empathic concern condition. Across early development, children exhibited enhanced N2 to pain when engaging in empathic concern. Greater pain‐elicited N2 responses in the cognitive empathy condition also related to parent dispositional empathy. Children's own prosocial behavior was predicted by several individual differences in neural function, including larger early LPP responses during cognitive empathy and greater differentiation in late LPP and slow wave responses to empathic concern versus affective perspective taking. Left frontal activation (greater alpha suppression) while engaging in affective perspective taking was also related to higher levels of parent cognitive empathy. Together, this multilevel analysis demonstrates the important distinction between facets of empathy in children; the value of examining neurobehavioral processes in development. It provides provoking links between children's neural functioning and parental dispositions in early development.
Differences in children’s frontal alpha asymmetry when perceiving others in distress is predicted both by chldren’s empathy and their parents cognitive empathetic dispositions. Children electrophysiological measures show early and late distinctions in response to the suffering of others. Their prosocial behavior is predicted by neural marker of cognitive empathy. Their parents dispositional empathic concern positively predicts children’s prosocial behavior.
Morality is an evolved aspect of human nature, yet is heavily influenced by cultural environment. This developmental study adopted an integrative approach by combining measures of socioeconomic ...status (SES), executive function, affective sharing, empathic concern, theory of mind, and moral judgment in predicting sharing behavior in children (N = 999) from the age of 5 to 12 in five large‐scale societies: Canada, China, Turkey, South Africa, and the USA. Results demonstrate that age, gender, SES, culture, and social cognitive mechanisms explain over 20% of the variance worldwide in children's resource allocation. These findings are discussed in reference to standard cultural comparisons (individualist/collectivist), as well as the degree of market integration, and highlight continuities and discontinuities in children's generosity across urban contexts.
This developmental study combined measures of socioeconomic status (SES), executive function, affective sharing, empathic concern, theory of mind, and moral judgment in predicting sharing behavior in children (N = 999) from the age of 5 to 12 in five large‐scale societies. Results demonstrate that age, gender, SES, culture, and social cognitive mechanisms explain over 20% of the variance worldwide in children’s resource allocation, highlighting continuities and discontinuities in children's generosity across urban contexts.
Empathy shapes the landscape of our social lives. It motivates prosocial and caregiving behaviors, plays a role in inhibiting aggression, and facilitates cooperation between members of a similar ...social group. Thus, empathy is often conceived as a driving motivation of moral behavior and justice, and, as such, everyone would think that it should be cultivated. However, the relationships between empathy, morality, and justice are complex. We begin by explaining what the notion of empathy encompasses and then argue how sensitivity to others' needs has evolved in the context of parental care and group living. Next, we examine the multiple physiological, hormonal, and neural systems supporting empathy and its functions. One troubling but important corollary of this neuro-evolutionary model is that empathy produces social preferences that can conflict with fairness and justice. An understanding of the factors that mold our emotional response and caring motivation for others helps provide organizational principles and ultimately guides decision making in medical ethics.
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