Abstract

Objective

Empathy for pain allows one to recognize, understand, and respond to another person’s pain in a prosocial manner. Young children develop empathy for pain later than empathy for other negative emotions (e.g., sadness), which may be due to social learning. How parents reminisce with children about past painful events has been linked to children’s pain cognitions (e.g., memory) and broader socioemotional development. The present study examined how parent–child reminiscing about pain may be linked to children’s empathic behaviors toward another person’s pain.

Methods

One hundred and fourteen 4-year-old children (55% girls) and for each, one parent (51% fathers) completed a structured narrative elicitation task wherein they reminisced about a past painful autobiographical event for the child. Children were then observed responding in a lab-based empathy task wherein they witnessed a confederate pretending to hurt themselves. Children’s empathic behaviors and parent–child narratives about past painful events were coded using established coding schemes.

Results

Findings revealed that parents who used more neutral emotion language (e.g., How did you feel?) when discussing past painful events had children who exhibited more empathic concern in response to another’s pain. Similarly, children who used more explanations when reminiscing about past painful events displayed more empathic concern about another’s pain.

Conclusions

Findings highlight a key role of parent–child reminiscing about the past pain in the behavioral expression of empathy for pain in young children.

中文翻译：

---

幼儿移情疼痛的社会化：母子回忆的作用

摘要

客观的

对痛苦的同情可以使人们以亲社会的方式认识，理解并应对他人的痛苦。幼儿对痛苦的共情要晚于对其他负面情绪（如悲伤）的共情，这可能是由于社会学习所致。父母如何回忆过去的痛苦事件与孩子的痛苦认知（例如记忆）和更广泛的社会情感发展有关。本研究研究了父母对孩子的痛苦回忆如何与孩子对他人痛苦的共情行为联系起来。

方法

114个4岁儿童（55％的女孩），每个父母（51％的父亲）完成了结构化的叙事启发任务，使他们回想起过去给孩子带来的痛苦的自传事件。然后观察到儿童在基于实验室的移情任务中做出回应，他们目睹同盟装扮自己受伤。使用建立的编码方案对儿童的同情行为和亲子叙事有关过去的痛苦事件进行了编码。

结果

研究结果表明，在讨论过去的痛苦事件时，父母使用更中性的情感语言（例如，您的感觉如何？）的孩子对他人的痛苦表现出更多的同情心。同样，在回忆过去的痛苦事件时使用更多解释的孩子对他人的痛苦也表现出更多的同情心。

结论

研究结果突显了亲子对回忆过去的痛苦在幼儿同情行为表达中的关键作用。