The warm glow of kindness: Developmental insight into children's moral pride across cultures and its associations with prosocial behavior

Moral pride is a key component of virtue development. This study provides developmental insight into children's moral pride across cultures, and the potential for moral pride to underlie prosocial behavior. Participants included children and adolescents ages 6, 9, and 12 years from Canada (n = 186; 50% girls; ethnically diverse sample), Japan (n = 180; 48% girls), and a subsample from Italy (n = 86; 54% girls), as well as their primary caregivers or teachers. Moral pride was measured using a vignette procedure wherein children reported their emotions, emotion intensities, and reasoning following moral actions (harm omission and prosocial contexts). Global prosocial behavior was assessed via caregiver reports. Results revealed that moral pride increased from 6 to 9 years of age in Japanese and Canadian children (some similar trends were found in the Italian subsample) and that Canadian children reported stronger feelings of moral pride than Japanese children (Italian children's moral pride intensities were akin to those of Canadian children). Moral pride was positively associated with global prosocial behavior in Japanese children (and marginally in Italian children) but not in the Canadian children. These novel findings showcase the role of culture in shaping children's moral pride, and the potential for this moral emotion to reinforce children's commitment to prosocial action in childhood and early adolescence

Children's Sympathy, Guilt, and Moral Reasoning in Helping, Cooperation, and Sharing: A 6-Year Longitudinal Study

This study examined the role of sympathy, guilt, and moral reasoning in helping, cooperation, and sharing in a 6-year, three-wave longitudinal study involving 175 children (Mage 6.10, 9.18, and 12.18 years). Primary caregivers reported on children's helping and cooperation; sharing was assessed behaviorally. Child sympathy was assessed by self- and teacher reports, and self-attributed feelings of guilt–sadness and moral reasoning were assessed by children's responses to transgression vignettes. Sympathy predicted helping, cooperation, and sharing. Guilt–sadness and moral reasoning interacted with sympathy in predicting helping and cooperation; both sympathy and guilt–sadness were associated with the development of sharing. The findings are discussed in relation to the emergence of differential motivational pathways to helping, cooperation, and sharing

Benevolence Versus Malevolence: The Development of Compassion and Schadenfreude and Their Links to Social Behaviour

Humans are capable of both benevolence and malevolence, but why and under which conditions do each of these capacities prevail? The aim of this dissertation was to shed light on the possible causes, consequences, and development of these divergent dispositions, specifically focusing on how two ethically relevant emotions—compassion and schadenfreude—relate to specific benevolent and malevolent behaviours across childhood and adolescence. Study 1 assessed children’s narratives of compassion, the development of compassion from mid-childhood to mid-adolescence, and whether children with different propensities for compassion varied in their prosocial behaviour. Children’s real-life experiences of compassion were multifaceted—they occurred following both physical and psychological harm and prompted various prosocial responses. Further, adolescents reported lower levels of compassionate concern than did children, and children and adolescents who expressed moderate to high levels of compassion had a higher propensity for prosocial behaviour than those who expressed little or no compassion. Employing a narrative approach, Study 2 explored how adolescents make meaning of their real-life experiences of schadenfreude. Findings showed that adolescents often mentioned feeling schadenfreude following another’s physical harm and failure for reasons of deservingness and personal gain. Age-related increases in deservingness themes were found. Study 3 assessed children’s feelings of schadenfreude in social conflict situations and how schadenfreude relates to compassion-related responding and aggressive behaviour. Findings revealed that schadenfreude was a prevalent emotional response to the “deserved” misfortune of a hypothetical peer, and that adolescents felt higher levels of schadenfreude than children. Schadenfreude rarely co-occurred with feelings of compassion and stronger feelings of schadenfreude predicted higher levels of physical aggression in girls but not boys. This dissertation contributed to our understanding of the complexities underlying the development of compassion and schadenfreude—separately and in tandem. In doing so, it showed that children may be more inclined to experience schadenfreude over compassion in contexts of deservingness with age, which calls for developmentally tailored interventions that promote kind and deter unkind emotions in childhood and adolescence. Overall, this dissertation unearthed the multifaceted nature of these emotions and provided evidence for their role in benevolent and malevolent outcomes.Ph.D

“That Really Hurt, Charlie!” Investigating the Role of Sympathy and Moral Respect in Children’s Aggressive Behaviour

This study examined the independent and combined roles of sympathy and moral respect in children’s overt aggression, and the subtypes of proactive and reactive aggression, in a sample of 5-, 7-, and 10-year-olds (N = 110). Aggressive behaviour was measured through teacher reports and peer nominations. Sympathy was measured through teacher reports. Moral respect was measured using an interview procedure where children reported their feelings of respect towards a moral and amoral character. Results revealed that sympathy and moral respect were negatively related to overt aggression and specifically to the proactive aggression subtype, and unrelated to the reactive aggression subtype. In addition, an interaction between children’s sympathy and respect for amoral others was found. In children with low sympathy, children’s respect for amoral others further increased their overt aggression. We discuss the implications of our findings in relation to developmental research on children’s aggressive behaviour, sympathy, and moral respect.M.A

Fact- and emotion-focused conversations elicit differential patterns of reporting and distress in children

We examined the role of emotion- versus fact-focused conversations in the details children reported about a stressful event and whether the details provided were prompted or spontaneously offered. We also tested how these conversational strategies, in conjunction with children's emotion regulation skills, influenced children's event-related distress. Children (N = 100 8- to 13-year-olds) experienced a stressor in the laboratory and were randomly assigned to participate in a fact-focused conversation (prompted about objective event elements) or an emotion-focused conversation (prompted about subjective reactions to the event) with an unfamiliar adult. Caregivers reported on children's emotion regulation skills. Children reported more overall prompted and spontaneous details in the fact-focused condition, but reported proportionally more spontaneous details than prompted detail in the emotion-focused condition compared to the fact-focused condition. Children with lower emotion regulation skills found the emotion-focused conversation (but not the fact-focused conversation) about the laboratory stressor significantly less distressing than children with high emotion regulation skills (when controlling for initial distress about the task). We propose that combining both fact- and emotion-focused conversational techniques may be most effective for encouraging detailed disclosures from children and for providing a respite from distress for children with emotion-regulation difficulties

Parent-Adolescent Conversations About COVID-19 Influence Adolescents Empathic Concern and Adherence to Health Protective Behaviors.

PURPOSE: This longitudinal investigation assessed how the frequency of parent-adolescent conversations about COVID-19, moderated by adolescents stress, influenced adolescents empathic concern and adherence to health protective behaviors (HPBs) throughout the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: Participants were 181 adolescents (Mage = 15.23 years; 51% girls; 47% Latinx) and their parents. Frequency of parent-adolescent conversations about COVID-19 (i.e., pandemic-related symptoms, health behaviors, and social effects), empathic concern toward vulnerable others, and adolescent HPBs were assessed via surveys in the first months of the pandemic, and empathic concern and HPBs were assessed again nine months later. RESULTS: Results revealed that more frequent parent-adolescent conversations early in the pandemic predicted increased adherence to HPBs throughout the pandemic when adolescents reported low stress (direct effect), but conversation frequency predicted decreased adherence to HPBs via reduced empathic concern when adolescents reported high stress (indirect effect). CONCLUSIONS: Parents and other socialization agents, such as teachers, should be sensitive to adolescents stress before engaging them in frequent conversations about the pandemic to mitigate the potential negative impact these conversations may have on adolescents empathic concern and adherence to HPBs. Decreasing adolescents stress may be an initial step in promoting effective message transference. Collective action (including wearing masks and receiving the vaccine) remains critical to overcoming COVID-19. The current study contributes to our understanding of the processes underlying adolescents adherence to recommended HPBs, which is critical as pandemic fatigue and stress continue to rise

Understanding the Victimization–Aggression Link in Childhood: The Roles of Sympathy and Resting Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia

With a sample of 4- and 8-year-olds (N = 131), we tested the extent to which more frequent experiences of victimization were associated with heightened aggression towards others, and how sympathetic concern and resting respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) factored into this relationship. Caregivers reported their children’s aggression and sympathy. Children reported their victimization and their resting RSA was calculated from electrocardiogram data in response to a nondescript video. Findings revealed that children who reported more frequent victimization were rated as less sympathetic and, in turn, more aggressive. However, resting RSA moderated this path, such that children with high levels were rated as more versus less sympathetic when they reported less versus more victimization, respectively. Results suggest that considering children’s sympathetic tendencies and physiology is important to gain a nuanced understanding of their victimization-related aggression

Children’s Social–Emotional Development in Contexts of Peer Exclusion

In this chapter, we review literature on the social–emotional processes of peer inclusion and exclusion from childhood to adolescence with a focus on peer exclusion based on minority status in distinct categories (e.g., ethnicity/nationality, gender, socioeconomic status). We begin with a brief historical review of research on social–emotional development in the context of peer relationships, followed by current research questions and methods. In our review of empirical findings under prevailing integrative developmental theories (i.e., moral emotions theory and social–developmental reasoning theory), we highlight children’s feelings and reasoning in contexts of peer exclusion, and the emotional and behavioral outcomes thereof. We then discuss the risks of failing to address peer exclusion in multicultural societies and offer guidelines and strategies for prevention and intervention. Finally, we conclude with a proposed research agenda that aims to address gaps in the literature and provide avenues for future research