The effects of empathy and presence of another person on prosocial behavior in preschool children

Abstract

The effects of empathy on sharing behavior under the presence or absence of another person(experimenter) were investigated. Eighty-eight 6-yr-old children were divided into high empathic group(H) and low emphathic group(L) by their empathy test scores. The number of shared chips out of nine rewarded chips was used as the measure of prosocial behavior. Group H donated significantly more chips to poor children than group L. In group L the subjects under the presence condition donated significantly more chips than those under the absence condition, but in group H no significant difference was found between these conditions. Preschool children''s prosocial behavior is apparently motivated by both empathy and presence of another person.