The relationship between the development of empathy and executive function in preschool-aged children

Abstract

The developmental advances that occur during the preschool years can play a crucial role in setting a child up for later success. The present study examined the performance of 91 preschoolers on an empathy task, the Happy/Sad Baby Task, two hot executive function (EF) tasks, the Preschool Gambling Task and the Reversal Task, and on two cool EF tasks, the Working Memory Task and the Attention Shifting Task. The results revealed a significantly more developed empathic response during the happy episode of the empathy task compared to during the sad episode. Findings also demonstrated a significant association between empathy and hot EF, as well as some evidence for an association between empathy and cool EF. These findings are mostly in line with previous research, adding to the growing body of work focused on establishing a connection between empathy and EF.