Such behavior can also be adaptive for the helper insofar as the individual helped is genetically related (even if the helper does not survive, some percentage of the helpers genes are passed on through the surviving recipient) (Hamilton, 1971). Intense conflicts involving a recalcitrant child are sometimes handled with the consistent, sustained application of a time-out technique whereby the child is sequestered (e.g., placed in a naughty corner, or, for older children, reflection chair) for a period of time. Hoffmans additional claim that empathy bonds with and motivates moral principles is more straightforward with respect to the principle of caring: The link between empathic distress and [principles of] caring is direct and obvious. Veridical empathy has the basic features of mature empathy, but becomes more complex or profoundly discerning and flexible with cognitive development (Hoffman. Humans are uniquely capable of reaching the most advanced forms of knowing what others know and understanding their situation (see Hoffmans Stages 5 and especially 6, below). The forces that propel me into action are the same, but I carry out the mission like a smart missile instead of a blind rocket. As noted in Chapter 3, Hoffman (2000) acknowledges a common preference for reciprocity (p. 242) or fairness and even a motive to correct reciprocity imbalances or violations, to right a wrong. An optimal level is called for: They seem blindly attracted, like a moth to a flame. We review below processes, strategies, beliefs, or principles that can help reduce such biases and otherwise remedy the limitations of empathy. And even highly empathic individuals must still interpret appropriately anothers distress. Indeed, caring seems like a natural extension of empathic distress in specific situations to the general idea that one should always help people in need (Hoffman, 2000, p. 225). Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. Haidt even mused: Might the world be a better place if we could greatly increase the care people get within their existing groups and nations while slightly decreasing the care they get from other groups and nations? (p. 242). Kochanska, 1995), and cultural context (physical discipline is less likely to be viewed as rejecting where such discipline is more normative; see Dodge, McLoyd, & Lansford, 2005). I have for some time been working on a comprehensive theoretical model for empathy, and in this paper, I present the most recent version of this model. In contrast, Hoffman consistently respects the hot in morality: the naturally hot desires of the ego (or the id in Freudian theory); the countervailing, naturally hot basic arousal modes of the empathic predisposition; and the role of empathy and evoked images in rendering hot various aspects of cognition (we have encountered, for example, self-recognition, cognitive development, scripts or heuristics, attributions, inferences, moral principles, internalized moral norms, and inductions). As the modes of the empathic predisposition interact with cognitive advances, we again see a cognitive developmental age trend toward more mature stages of moral perception, motivation, and behavior. Metaphorically, empathy is the spark of human concern for others, the glue that makes social life possible (Hoffman, 2000, p. 3) and the bedrock of prosocial morality (Hoffman, 2008, p. 449). Although empathy may be the bedrock of prosocial morality (Hoffman, 2008, p. 449), empathy even at the mature stages does not necessarily eventuate in prosocial behavior. Hoffman, 1975b, 1976, 1977, 2008). An intervening induction may point to the still-present crying victim: For inductive information to be understood well enough to arouse empathic distress and guilt at that age, it must simply and clearly point up the victims distress and make the childs role in it salient (You pushed him and he fell down and started to cry). From this reflection emerged a sense of self-disappointment (I, too, was disappointed in myself). Hoffman (personal communication, August 29, 2012) pointed out that, like his egocentric empathic distress, de Waals preconcern is a primitive form of empathy lacking the advanced modes (such as social perspective-taking). Specifically, Hoffman advocates the use of inductions or parental messages that highlight the others perspective, point up the others distress, and make it clear that the childs action caused it (p. 143). Also highlighted are the psychological processes . Cikara, Bruneau, & Saxe, 2011). 8485). Given our thesis that moral development entails growth beyond the superficial, we find most intriguing the developmental progression in the arousal modes from shallow processing (attention to surface or physically salient cues) to more subtle discernment and expanded caring. Similarly, Singer (1981) suggested that we can master our genes (p. 131) to expand our moral circle through the use of reason (cf. The book's focus is empathy's contribution to altruism and compassion for others in physical, psychological, or economic distress. White policemen would invade our neighborhood in the middle of the night, break down our door and march my parents half naked out of bed, interrogate and humiliate my father and then arrest him for the crimes of being unemployed and harboring his family as illegal aliens in white South Africa White people could not be human. Batson (2011) argued that valuing the others welfare is a more fundamental source of empathic concern, partly because perspective-taking spontaneously flows from other-valuing (p. 228). Multiple modes, components, or stages promote the reliability and subtlety of the empathic response. Cognitive empathy [the ability to put oneself in the shoes of this other entity without losing the distinction between self and other; cf. De Waal (1996) suggested that social perspective-taking and other cognitive processes permit humans to direct more appropriately and effectively (fine-tune) the empathic and helping tendencies shared with other cooperative animals: The cognitive dimension [has] to do with the precise channeling of [empathy]. Severe levels of power assertion, or physical child abuse, can inculcate in the child a schema or internal working model of the world as dangerous and threatening, of others as having hostile intentions; such biased or distorted social information processing has been linked to subsequent antisocial behavior (Dodge, Coie, & Lynam, 2006). In full (affective and cognitive) empathy, we connect to and understand others and make their situation our own (de Waal, 2009, p. 225, emphasis added). Batson, 2012). In phylogenetic history, bodily synchrony and mimicry may have been adaptive in the context of not only the mother-infant dance but also intra-group cooperation: running when others run, laughing when others laugh, crying when others cry, or yawning when others yawn. Such emotional convergence or mood contagion serves to coordinate activities, which is crucial for any traveling species (as most primates are) (de Waal, 2009, pp. 78 sixth and seventh graders (138-172 months in age), their mothers, and teachers completed multiple measures of Hoffman's constructs. Hoffman (2000) suggested that empathic learning in this sense may be inevitable as mothers hold their infants and communicate through bodily contact: The mothers accompanying facial and verbal expressions [of, for example, anxiety or tension] then become conditioned stimuli, which can subsequently evoke distress in the child even in the absence of physical contact (pp. Might a basic self-knowledge be all that is needed for a real concern about the other, entailing a clear awareness that the other person is hurting rather than the self (Davidov et al., 2013, p. 2)? I will call this blind attraction preconcern. Hence, given moral socialization and internalizationalong with the biological and cognitive-developmental factors already discussedan older child will at least experience an inner moral conflict in a moral encounter. By John C. Gibbs and Martin L. Hoffman. Martin Hoffman (1 paragraph for M1/M2) + (1 paragraph for D1) M1 M2 Assess the use of Hoffman's empathy theory in building relationships, trust and preventing discrimination, must include; Summary of what Hoffman states about empathy and forming relationships Assess how HPs use Hoffman's theory to build positive relationships with . "Empathy is important; I view it as the bedrock of prosocial morality and the glue of society" (p. 449). Is heightened self-identity or self-awareness crucial, then, for advances in prosocial behavior or concern for others? empathy will have to yield to [fair and impartial] reason if humanity is to have a future (119121). After the final stage a child, who has become an adolescent by the last stage, is able to fully empathize with others. Human beings cant even keep track of more than about 150 people, let alone love them all, observed Alison Gopnik (2009, p. 216). 72, 100, 209, 241). We then created disappointment and other-oriented induction subscales and correlated each with prosocial behavior. The New York Times) Fifth Stage of Moral Development. Basic or non-voluntary, Motor mimicry (automatic facial/postural imitation plus feedback), Conditioning (selfs distress infuses experience of others distress cues), Direct association (selfs past distress infuses experience of others distress), Verbally mediated association (others distress experienced via language), Social perspective-taking (self-focused [imagining self in others place] and/or other-focused), Developmental stages of empathic distress (sympathy formed as arousal modes coalesce with cognitive development), Egocentric (confuses others distress with empathic distress, may seek to comfort self yet stares at, drawn to distressed other; cf. Although distinguishable, the Hoffmanian and Kohlbergian aspects of the story are intimately interrelated and complementary. Extending from the modes, we now describe Hoffmans immature and mature stages of empathy development. Roger Brown (1965) once wondered whether the Mona Lisa owes its popularity at least partly to its recognition value among museum tourists. When a moral requirement and motive (for example, one promised to visit and feels sympathy for a sick friend) conflict with an egoistic desire (one is tempted instead to accept an invitation to join a party), the morally internalized person seeks a responsible balance or priority (even if it means forgoing the party). Particularly impressive has been the systematic, integrative work of Martin Hoffman (2000, 2008). Experiencing empathy for fictional characters, for example, allows people to have a range of emotional experiences that might otherwise be impossible. A young child, for example, may simply laugh along with a momentarily laughing but terminally ill peer.4Close Although there are precocious exceptions, childrens attention tends, to be fixed or centered on the more salient personal and situational cues of anothers distress in the situation. The main concept is empathyone feels what is appropriate for another person's situation, not one's own. Drawing on Martin Hoffman's systematic, research-based theory of empathy and socialization, it considers the complex nature of the empathic predisposition, the distinction between self and other as a prerequisite for mature empathy, and the use of both self-focused and other-focused perspective-taking in mature empathy. Furthermore, the scripts can be infused with empathic distress and a (rudimentary) guilt feeling, which gives them the properties, including the motivational properties, of affectively charged representations, or hot cognitions. 69, 80). *Investigate the principles behind enabling individuals with care and support needs to John Bowlby's attachment theory-John Bowlby's attachment theory suggests that it is important for a child to have an adult in their life that they have a close bond to, whether this be parents, grandparents or . Chimpanzee groups practice adoption of a motherless infant; they also engage in cooperative hunting and in sharing meat after a kill (Goodall, 1990). Empathy empowers the mental representations and causal schemas entailed in moral internalization. Nor is the satisfaction of saving 150 lives 150 times more intense than that of saving one life. As in the right of moral judgment, growth beyond the superficial in the good of benevolence or empathy must be recognized as entailing important developmental advances. Empathy in the early stages is posited to be, as de Waal put it, a blind attraction rather than real [or mature] concern for the other person. Childrens transition from compliance with parental discipline to acceptance of parental induction constitutes, then, moral socialization or the internalization of a societys prosocial norms. According to Hoffmans theory, other-oriented inductions specifically account for this relationship. Accordingly, parents can now communicate more complex and subtle information concerning emotional harm. These stages specify a cognitive developmental growth beyond the superficial in empathic morality. "Empathy is a building block of moralityfor people to follow the Golden Rule, it helps if they can put themselves in . It should be emphasized that an internalized moral norm is one that has been appropriated or adopted as ones own. In other words, cognitive processes can complicate and even undermine the relationship between empathy and prosocial behavior. Such ambiguous conflict situations beg for adult intervention because they allow each child to blame the other; the neutralizing effect of other-blaming causal attributions on empathy was noted earlier. Martin L. Hoffman aims to determine the extent of which empathy affects the creation, and execution of law through the writing "Empathy, Justice, and the Law." . Much more than did Haidt, Hoffman has focused our attention on the role of empathy in moral development. In contrast to Haidts treatment of empathy as a unitary construct, empathy in Hoffmans theory entails multiple modes and developmental processes. Accordingly, the complex empathic predisposition is rich with contrasting qualities: shallow but also penetrating; fleeting or immediate but also stable and sustained; narrow but also broad in scope (encompassing victims who are absent); automatic or involuntary but also voluntary; passive and unconscious but also effortful and conscious. He first discusses how empathy can be used as a motivator because assisting those that one . Moral educational or cognitive behavioral interventions are discussed in Chapter 8. After all, to recognize the need of others, and react appropriately, is not the same as a preprogrammed tendency to sacrifice oneself for the genetic good (de Waal, 2013, p. 33). Adult intervention, then, is often needed in child conflict situations. social interactions According to Li-Grining how do children learn impulse control? Egocentrically inclined adults notwithstanding, Hoffman (2000) concluded that egocentric projections are especially prevalent in the empathic responses of very young children. Decety, 2007). Empathy . She (the she emergent through her reflection) then found immoral acts such as theft to violate who she is, her identity. Because the design of these studies was cross-sectional and correlational, the results are amenable to alternative causal interpretations. Perhaps, then, not all white people were unfeeling like the police. He wondered whether, by killing whites I would also kill people like the nun whose empathy had given my mother hope and whose help had saved me, by making it possible for me to get an education, from the dead-end life of the street and gangs. In this context, the functional value of prosocial behavior pertains to the survival of the prosocial actors familiar in-group of family, friends, and others similar to oneself. (Hoffman [2011] has also written on empathys contributionsboth positive and negativeto legal justice and the law.). Although empathic feelings affectively charge an airplane pilots knowledge of safe landing procedures, for example, those feelings must not be allowed to become disruptive. In particular, given the cross-cultural diversity of societal norms and of approaches to moral socialization, it is unlikely that requisite levels of prosocial behavior could be commonly achieved without some universal starting place in the child, as it were, for such socialization. The preadolescent responds, then, not only to immediate expressive or behavioral cues but also to information concerning the others life condition, knowing that momentary expressions can belie deeper emotions or mood states. Elsewhere (see Chapter 3 notes) we describe an intrinsic motivation to explore (effectance motive). Depending on whether ones referent for empathy is primal or fully layered, then, empathy is or is not common among mammals. Singer, 1981). As we will see, regulatory cognitive strategies, beliefs, principles, and other processes can remedy these limitations and even promote prosocial moral development.

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