Parenting Journal · Volume 1 · Issue 1 · Licensed source edition
Here, there and everywhere: emotion and mental state talk in different social contexts predicts empathic helping in toddlers
Originally published 2014-04-29 · Frontiers in Psychology
Frontiers Media SA · DOI 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00361 ↗
Editorial reading guide · Kindness
What can shared books and play reveal about talking with toddlers about feelings?
Examines an ordinary family practice—talking about feelings and mental states—in relation to toddlers’ empathic helping. The distinction between empathic and instrumental helping makes kindness concrete without equating all helping behaviors.
Who was studied?
Thirty-eight toddlers and a parent observed in book reading, joint play and helping tasks.
Age / stage: 18–30 months
Read with three questions
- How did parents’ emotion talk differ between book reading and play?
- Was emotion talk associated with empathic helping, instrumental helping, or both?
- Which findings concern labeling emotions and which concern eliciting children’s talk?
Keep the limits in view
A small correlational, cross-sectional sample cannot establish that increasing emotion talk causes helping or that the same associations persist over time.
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Original authorship, publication date, journal and DOI are preserved. This issue’s TRICK placement and reading questions are editorial additions, not claims made by the original authors.
Jesse Drummond; Elena F Paul; Whitney E Waugh; Stuart I Hammond; Celia A Brownell (2014). Here, there and everywhere: emotion and mental state talk in different social contexts predicts empathic helping in toddlers Frontiers in Psychology. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00361
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