Empathy-Related Responding of Withdrawn Preschoolers ......Empathy-Related Responding of Withdrawn Preschoolers: Reactions to Hypothetical Situations of Conflict 87 19 （1,49）=3.28，p

山形大学紀要（教育科学）第16巻第2号別刷平成27年（2015）2月

Empathy-Related Responding of Withdrawn Preschoolers:Reactions to Hypothetical Situations of Conflict

（引っ込み思案傾向のある幼児の共感性：仮想的対人葛藤場面による検討）

　

藤　岡　久美子大学院教育実践研究科

山　形　大　学　紀　要（教育科学）第１６巻　第２号　平成２７年２月Bull. of Yamagata Univ., Educ. Sci., Vol. 1６ No. 2, February 201５

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Kumiko Fujioka（Professional School of Education）（Received October 1, 2014）

AbstractThis study examined the empathy-related responding of withdrawn preschoolers. From an initial sample of 353 Japanese preschool children, 27 withdrawn children and 26 comparison children were identified based on teacher assessments. To examine the children’s empathetic response, hypothetical situations of interpersonal conflict that would probably induce anger or sadness were presented by pictorial representations, each accompanied by verbal descriptions. The children were asked to imagine that the main character in the vignettes was their real friend and to answer as if they saw the situations in which the friend expressed his/her emotion. After listening to story, the children were asked how they would feel and the reason of their feeling. Their responses were coded in four categories. Age × group ANOVAs revealed that withdrawn children expressed more personal distress than the comparison group for each age group. In addition, older withdrawn children showed low levels of empathetic reaction to their friend’s emotion than the comparison group.

IntroductionSocial withdrawal in early childhoodPeer interaction in early childhood is considered to be crucial to social development,

which includes development of social skill, social competence, and prosocial behavior. Given the importance of peer interaction, developmental psychologists have paid attention to children who display solitude in classroom.Researchers have used several terms to refer to those children, for example, inhibition, shyness, isolation and social withdrawal （Rubin, Burgess, & Coplan, 2002）. Social withdrawal refers to the consistent display of all forms of solitary behavior when encountering familiar and/or unfamiliar peers （Rubin and Asendorpf, 1993）. Although not all withdrawn children experience anxiety and depression, social

withdrawal is generally considered a symptom of internalizing problems （Burgess, Wojslawowicz, Rubin, Rose-Krasnor, & Booth-LaForce, 2006）. Therefore, a considerable

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number of empirical studies have examined socio-emotional adjustment of social withdrawn children （e.g., Coplan, Gavinski-Molina, Lagacé-Séguin, & Wichmann, 2001; Gazell, 2008; Ladd, 2006; Nelson, Rubin, & Fox, 2005）.However, as Burgess et al. （2006） pointed out, relatively few research explored the

ways in which socially withdrawn children interpret social cues and intentions. Following questions remain unclear; how do they feel when they experience negativity in social situations? Do they tend to feel anger or sadness when they encounter interpersonal conflict? In addition, withdrawn children’s vicarious emotional reactions that might be elicited by awareness of another person’s emotions have not been addressed in previous research.

Vicarious emotional responding: Empathy and personal distressVicarious emotional responding means an affective reaction that stems from the

comprehension of another’s emotional state or condition. Empathy is vicarious emotional responding that is “identical or very similar to what the other person is feeling or would be expected to feel” （Eisenberg and Fabes, 1998）. Another vicarious emotional responding, which distinct from empathy, is personal

distress. According to Batson （1987）, personal distress is a self-focused aversion reaction to another’s state or condition, subjectively experienced as anxiety, distress, or the like. Personal distress usually leads to a self-oriented goal such as receding from another person’s trouble or distress, whereas empathy seems to cause the other-oriented goal of alleviating another person’s problems or negative feelings. Although both empathy and personal distress involves the process of perceiving another’s emotional state, outcomes of them would differ in terms of social behavior.Empathy and/or sympathy have been hypothesized to link to individuals’ moral

development, altruistic and prosocial behavior, social competence, and low levels of externalizing problems. Investigators have demonstrated the links between children’s empathy or sympathy and their positive behaviors, such as helping and comforting, as well as their social competence （e.g., Eisenberg, Fabes, Murphy, et al., 1996）. Whereas relations between empathic/sympathetic responding and externalizing behavior problem have been examined in many studies （Miller & Eisenberg, 1988）, little is known about the other form of behavior problem –internalizing behavior problem, and the other form of vicarious emotional responding –personal distress.

The purpose of the present studyThe purpose of the present study is to examine emotional characteristics of withdrawn preschoolers and their age-related differences. The research questions are:

（1） Emotional reactions: In case of being rejected or interrupted, which emotion do withdrawn children tend to feel, sadness or anger?


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（2） Vicarious emotional reactions: Do withdrawn children tend to show empathetic reaction or personal distress?

MethodParticipants The participants in this study were 53 preschool children who were attending local preschools in Yamagata prefecture, Japan. Thirteen teachers of 3 preschools were asked to complete the nomination questionnaire, which consists of 7 questions drawing children’s withdrawal （e.g., “inactive, watches others play”）, and 7 questions drawing the opposite of withdrawn behavior （e.g., “starts up conversations”）. The teachers nominated three children of their classes for each questions. Based on nomination scores, 27 withdrawn children （4-year-older, 4 boys and 10 girls, M age=5.1; 5-year-older, 7 boys and 6 girls, M age=6.0） and 26 proactive children （4-year- older, 3 boys and 10 girls, M age=4.9; 5-year-older, 5 boys and 8 girls, M age=6.1） were identified from an initial sample of 353 children.

Overview of procedureBefore the investigation, a female experimenter visited the preschools for several times

to build rapport with the participant children. The study was conducted in two phases. In the initial phase, children’s interpersonal anxiety and emotional reaction to hypothetical situations of conflict were assessed. In the second phase, after an interval of a week, vicarious emotional reaction was assessed.

MeasuresInterpersonal anxiety. The children were asked about their anxiety in interpersonal

situations, using pictorial representations that were drawn from 5 items taken from a child interpersonal anxiety questionnaire （Matsuo & Arai, 1998）. For example, the experimenter asked “Are you scared when you talk in a big group?”.　Then, they were asked the degree of anxiety on a 4-point scale using pictures that displayed the intensity of affective state.Emotional reaction to hypothetical situations of conflict. Four interpersonal conflict

situations for preschoolers were chosen from several studies （e.g., Asakawa & Matsuoka, 1987）. Each situation was considered to be likely to cause either sadness or anger in children. At the beginning of the vignette, the children were asked to imagine the situations described had happened to them. The four vignettes involved the following situations: （a） two peers tell the participant child he/she cannot play with them because they want to play only with each other; （b） a peer who the child plays with, building a block tower, leaves without saying anything; （c） a peer takes away the toy that the child has been using without saying anything; and, （d） the child's art work is intentionally knocked over by a peer. Those vignettes were presented in pictorial representations consisting of 3 scenes, each accompanied by verbal descriptions （see Appendix 1）. In the

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final scene of each story, the character’s face was blank. Children were asked to choose the one that best represented how they would feel in the situation from pictures of four different affective states （happy, sad, angry, and neutral）. After choosing the affective state, they were asked to rate the degree of the emotion on a 3-point scale using pictures that displayed the intensity of each affective state, except “neutral”. Vicarious emotional reaction. At the beginning, the children were asked to name one of their friends playing with frequently. The four vignettes used in the first phase were presented with two differences. First, the character was not the participant child but the friend of him/her. Second, in the final scene of each story, the character’s emotional expression, which was different from the child’s own emotion answered in the first phase, was displayed （see Appendix 2）. Specifically, the vignette, in which a friend displayed anger in the interpersonal conflict situation, was presented to a participant child who felt sad in the same situation. The children were asked to imagine that the main character in the vignettes was their real friend and they saw the situations in which the friend expressed his/her emotion. After listening to story, the children were asked how they would feel and the reason of their feeling, using affective state pictures.Their responses were coded in following four categories: （a）Empathetic reaction: choosing the same emotion as the friend’s mentioning sympathy or altruistic motives; （b）Simple similarity: choosing the same emotion as the friend’s without a mention of reason; （c）Personal distress: mentioning his/her distress or discomfort that stemmed from the friend’s emotion（for example, “I’m scared because she is mad.”） ; （d）Non-empathetic reaction: choosing an emotion that differs from the friend without a mention of the friend's emotion. An inter-rater reliability of two independent raters was .93.

ResultsChildren’s responses were examined as a function of group （withdrawn, comparison）

and age （4-years, 5-years） in a series of analyses of variance. Descriptive indices are presented in Table 1 to 3.

Interpersonal anxiety

A significant group effect was found （F（1,49）=8.41，p<.01）, indicating higher anxiety in the withdrawn group than the comparison group.

Emotional reactionsBecause no child chose “happy” as emotional reaction to conflict situations, only the scores of “anger” and “sadness” were served as variables.Results revealed a significant interaction effect for group × age for anger （F（1,49）= 4.13，p<.05）. Follow-up simple-effects tests testing for the effects of group at each level of age and also for the effects of age at each level of group revealed a significant group difference for the younger groups（F（1,49）=3.15，p<.10） and for the comparison groups （F


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（1,49）=3.28，p<.10）. Specifically, the withdrawn children felt more anger than the comparison children in the younger groups. The younger comparison children also showed less anger than the older comparison children.No significant differences were found for sadness.

Vicarious emotional reactionsResults revealed a significant group effect for “personal distress” （F（1,49）=6.04，p<.05）, indicating withdrawn children’s higher distress than comparison children.A marginally significant group × age interaction was found for “empathetic reaction”

（F（1,49）=2.99，p<.10）. according to tests of simple effects, the older-comparison group showed higher empathy than the younger- comparison group and the older-withdrawn group（F（1,49）=3.47，p<.10; 4.40, p<.05, respectively）. No significant differences were found for “non-empathy” and “simple similarity”

DiscussionThe younger withdrawn children showed more anger than the younger comparison

children; however, such difference was not found in the older groups. In the older groups, withdrawn children showed low levels of empathetic reaction to their friend’s emotion in conflict situations.

Table 1 Means and SDs of Interpersonal Anxiety

Withdrawal Comparison Withdrawal ComparisonMean 2.50 1.23 2.62 0.77

SD 2.26 1.53 2.06 1.53

Table 2 Means and SDs of Intensity of Emotion

Withdrawal Comparison Withdrawal ComparisonSadness Mean 3.86 5.69 4.08 4.00

SD 2.77 2.91 2.53 3.55Anger Mean 4.57 2.46 3.31 4.62

SD 3.44 2.65 2.84 2.73Ratings of items could range from 0 to 12.

Table 3 Means and SDs of Vicarious Emotional Reactions

Withdrawal Comparison Withdrawal ComparisonEmpathetic reaction Mean 0.50 0.39 0.31 1.00

SD 0.63 0.63 0.61 1.24Simple similarity Mean 1.07 1.23 1.46 1.38

SD 0.88 1.05 1.08 1.27Personal distress Mean 0.50 0.08 0.38 0.00

SD 0.91 0.27 0.62 0.00Non-empathy Mean 1.93 2.31 1.85 1.62

SD 1.28 1.20 0.86 1.27Ratings of items could range from 0 to 4.

4-year old 5-year old



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A possible interpretation for differences in age-related patterns found in emotional characteristics of withdrawn children could be that types of withdrawal differed between two age groups. Rubin & Coplan （2004） claimed that the term social withdrawal can be construed as an

“umbrella term,” encompassing at least two different “reasons” why children might choose to play alone; wariness/anxiety/shyness, and unsociability/social disinterest. Gazelle & Ladd （2003） labeled the former “anxious solitude”. Distinct from anxious solitary children who have conflict between approach motivation and wariness to initiate social interaction; unsociable children lack neither a strong desire for peer interaction nor avoidance. In the present study, the children were identified as withdrawal based on the teacher assessment questionnaire that described behaviors rather than internal characteristics, such as motivation, intention, and emotion. Therefore internal factors that were likely to cause withdrawal behaviors might vary among age groups. Specifically, younger children might recede from interaction with peers if they have immature social skills and a tendency to feel anger or frustration in social conflict situations. As a result, they are likely to be considered withdrawn. Unlike younger children, older children could not maintain interaction with peers if they had a low ability of social information-processing.Few longitudinal studies have examined the stability of withdrawal in early childhood, and the findings from those studies are inconsistent （Ladd, & Burgess, 1999; Egeland, Kalkoske, Gottesman, & Erickson, 1990）. Harrist, Zaia, Bates, Dodge, & Pettit （1997） suggested that the ambiguity in extant studies regarding whether or not social withdrawal was a risk factor in psychosocial development could be accounted for by subtypes of withdrawal. It is probable that different subtypes of withdrawal were dominant in each age group in

this study; however, the results of this study cannot be taken as evidence for the subtypes of withdrawal. Therefore, further investigations are needed in order to demonstrate the subtypes of withdrawal in terms of emotional characteristics and their age-related differences.

ReferencesAsakawa, K., & Matsuoka, S. （1987）. A developmental study of empathy in childhood. The

Japanese Journal of Educational Psychology, 35, 231-240.Batson, C. D. （1987）. Prosocial motivation: Is it ever truly altruistic? In L. Berkowitz （Ed.）,

Advances in experimental social psychology （Vol.20, pp.65-122）. New York: Academic Press.

Burgess, K. B., Wojslawowicz, J. C., Rubin, K. h., Rose-Krasnor, L., & Booth-LaForce, C. （2006）. Social information processing and coping strategies of shy/withdrawn and aggressive children: Does friendship matter? Child Development, 77, 371-383.

Coplan, R. J., Gavinski-Molina, M. H., Lagacé-Séguin, D. G., & Wichmann, C. （2001）. When


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girls versus boys play alone: Nonsocial play and adjustment in kindergarten. Developmental Psychology, 37, 464-474.

Egeland, B., Kalkoske, M., Gottesman, N., & Erickson, M. F. （1990）. Preschool behavior problems: stability and factors accounting for change. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 31, 891-909.

Eisenberg, N., & Fabes, R. A. （1998）. Prosocial development. In N. Eisenberg （Ed.）, W. Damon （Series Ed.）, Handbook of child psychology: Vol.3. Social, emotional, and personality development （5th ed., pp.701-778）. NewYork: Wiley.

Eisenberg, N., Fabes, R. A., Bustamante, D., Mathy, R. M., Miller, P., & Lindholm, E. （1988）.　　　Differentiation of vicariously induced emotional reactions in children.

Developmental Psychology, 24, 237-246.Eisenberg, N., Fabes, R. A., Murphy, B., Karbon, M., Smith, M., & Maszk, P. （1996）. The

relations of children's dispositional empathy-related responding to their emotionality, regulation, and social functioning. Developmental Psychology, 32, 195-209.

Gazelle, H. （2008）. Behavioral profiles of anxious solitary children and heterogeneity in peer relations. Developmental Psychology, 44, 1604-1624.

Gazelle, H., & Ladd, G. W. （2003）. Anxious solitude and peer exclusion: A diathesis-stress model of internalizing trajectories in childhood. Child Development, 74, 257-278.

Harrist, A. W., Zaia, A. F., Bates, J. E., Dodge, K. A., & Pettit, G. S. （1997）. Subtypes of social withdrawal in early childhood: sociometric status and social-cognitive differences across four years. Child Development, 68, 278-294.

Ladd, G. W. （2006）. Peer rejection, aggressive or withdrawn behavior, and psychological maladjustment from ages 5 to 12: An examination of four predictive models. Child Development, 77, 822-846.

Ladd, G. W., & Burgess, K. B. （1999）. Charting the relationship trajectories of aggressive, withdrawn, and aggressive/withdrawn children during early grade school. Child Development, 70, 910-929.

Matsuo, N., & Arai, K. （1998）. Relationship among social anxiousness, public self-consciousness and social self-efficacy in children. Japanese Journal of Educational Psychology, 46, 21-30.

Miller, P. A., & Eisenberg, N. （1988）. The relation of empathy to aggressive and externalizing/antisocial behavior. Psychological Bulletin, 103, 324-344.

Nelson, L. J., Rubin, K. H., & Fox, N. A. （2005）. Social withdrawal, observed peer acceptance, and the development of self-perceptions in children ages 4 to 7 years. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 20, 185-200.

Rubin, K. H., & Asendorpf, J. B. （1993）. Social withdrawal, inhibition, and shyness in childhood. NJ: Erlbaum: Hillsdale.

Rubin, K. H., Burgess, K. B., & Coplan, R. J. （2002）. Social withdrawal and shyness. In P. K. Smith & C. H. Hart （Eds.）, Blackwell Handbook of Childhood Social Development

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（pp. 329-352.）: Blackwell.Rubin, K. H., & Coplan, R. J. （2004）. Paying attention to and not neglecting social

withdrawal and social isolation. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly-Journal of Developmental Psychology, 50, 506-534.

Zhou, Q., Eisenberg, N., Losoya, S. H., Fabes, R. A., Reiser, M., Guthrie, I. K., Murphy, B. C., Cumberland, A. J., & Shepard, S. A. （2002）. The relations of parental warmth and positive expressiveness to children's empathy-related responding and social functioning: a longitudinal study. Child Development, 73, 893-915.


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引っ込み思案傾向のある幼児の共感性：仮想的対人葛藤場面による検討

藤岡久美子大学院教育実践研究科

共感は、他者の情動表出に接して引き起こされる代理的情動反応であり、対人的相互作用において重要な役割を果たすとされる。本研究の目的は、引っ込み思案傾向のある幼児の共感性の特徴を明らかにすることである。４歳児および５歳児クラスに在籍する３５３名の幼児から、仲間との関わり方に関する保育者評定をもとに２７名の引っ込み思案群と、引っ込み思案とは反対の特徴を持つ２６名の対照群を抽出した。共感反応の測定として、怒りあるいは悲しみを喚起しうる対人葛藤場面のストーリー（例：遊びに入れてもらえない）を紙芝居で提示し、友達が当事者となり感情表出する場面を見た場合の自分の感情や理由を尋ねた。回答は、友達が表出する感情と喚起された自分の感情が一致しているかどうか及び感情の理由をもとに、４つのカテゴリーに分類された（共感、単純な一致、個人的苦痛、共感なし）。群×年齢の分散分析の結果、引っ込み思案群は対照群に比べて個人的苦痛（怒っている友達は怖いからいやだ、などの反応）が高かった。また、５歳児において、引っ込み思案群は対照群よりも共感が低かった。

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Empathy-Related Responding of Withdrawn Preschoolers ......Empathy-Related Responding of Withdrawn Preschoolers: Reactions to Hypothetical Situations of Conflict 87 19 （1,49）=3.28，p