Empathy And Its Development

The culmination of three decades of study and research in the area of child and developmental psychology.

Roots of Empathy — an evidence-based program developed in 1996 by longtime educator and social entrepreneur Mary Gordon — has already reached more than 270,000 children in Canada, the U.S., Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and elsewhere. Now, as The New York Times reports that "empathy lessons are spreading everywhere amid concerns over the pressure on students from high-stakes tests and a race to college that starts in kindergarten", Mary Gordon explains the value of and how best to nurture empathy and social and emotional literacy in all children — and thereby reduce aggression, antisocial behavior, and bullying.

Originally published in 1985, this book sought to thoroughly examine and better understand a dimension of interpersonal relations which at the time had often proven elusive, confusing, and quite difficult to operationalize. Empathy had been diversely defined, hard to measure, often resistant to change, yet emerged as a singularly important influence in human interaction. The Editors lengthy effort to better understand its nature, consequences and alteration was not an easy journey, yet was a rewarding one. This book presents the fruits of their journey, and thus they hoped the reader would feel equally rewarded. The several diverse definitions of empathy are sequentially presented and examined in Chapter 1, in an effort to begin this book with a shared understanding of the major historical and contemporary meanings of the construct. The Editors conclude this initial chapter by subscribing themselves to a particular components definition of empathy, a definition they predict will prove particularly useful in enhancing future understanding, investigation, and application of empathic behaviour. This components definition, therefore, substantially influences and shapes much of the content of the rest of the book.

Since empathy first emerged as an object of inquiry within British history education in the early 1970s, teachers, scholars and policymakers have debated the concept’s role in the teaching and learning of history. Yet over the years this discussion has been confined to specialized education outlets, while empathy’s broader significance for history and philosophy has too often gone unnoticed. Empathy and History is the first comprehensive account of empathy’s place in the practice, teaching, and philosophy of history. Beginning with the concept’s roots in nineteenth-century German historicism, the book follows its historical development, transformation, and deployment while revealing its relevance for practitioners today.

Social Cognition brings together diverse and timely writings that highlight cutting-edge research and theories on the development of social cognition and social behavior across species and the life span. The volume is organized according to two central themes that address issues of continuity and change both at the phylogenetic and the ontogenetic level. First, the book addresses to what extent social cognitive abilities and behaviors are shared across species, versus abilities and capacities that are uniquely human. Second, it covers to what extent social cognitive abilities and behaviors are continuous across periods of development within and across the life span, versus their change with age. This volume offers a fresh perspective on social cognition and behavior, and shows the value of bringing together different disciplines to illuminate our understanding of the origins, mechanisms, functions, and development of the many capacities that have evolved to facilitate and regulate a wide variety of behaviors fine-tuned to group living.

This volume extends the theoretical scope of the important concept of empathy by analysing not only the cultural contexts that foster the generating of empathy, but in focusing also on the limits of pro-social feelings and the mechanisms that lead to its blocking.

This thought-provoking volume offers psychological perspectives on the formation of empathy and how this determines both antisocial and prosocial behaviors in individuals. It offers a theoretically grounded and empirically proven integrated approach, helping readers gain a holistic understanding of human nature and the need for empathic interaction between people. Larysa Zhuravlova and Oleksiy Chebykin study the evolution of empathy, peculiarities from birth to old age, and its role in the moral and spiritual development of a person. Key sections explore theoretical and methodological principles of empathy research, the genesis and development of human empathy, the phylogenetic preconditions for empathy, the psychological features of the ontogenesis of empathy, the key factors in personality development, and the experimental study of empathy. Considering a vision of a society based on empathic relationships, which could deter discrimination, help resolve environmental issues, harmonize interpersonal relationships, and resolve conflict, this new text is for advanced students of developmental and educational psychology. It will have broad appeal across academic and applied discipines in social and developmental psychology, education, the helping professions, and human development.