the relations of children's dispositional empathy-related responding to their emotionality,...

Developmental Psychology1996, Vol. 32, No. 2,195-209

Copyright 1996 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.0012-1649/96/13,00

The Relations of Children's Dispositional Empathy-Related Respondingto Their Emotionality, Regulation, and Social Functioning

Nancy Eisenberg, Richard A. Fabes, Bridget Murphy, Mariss Karbon, Melanie Smith, and Pat MaszkArizona State University

The relations of kindergartners' to 2nd graders' dispositional sympathy to individual differences inemotionality, regulation, and social functioning were examined. Sympathy was assessed withteacher- and self-reports; contemporaneously and 2 years earlier, parents and teachers reported onchildren's emotionality, regulation, and social functioning. Social functioning also was assessed withpeer evaluations and children's enacted puppet behavior, and negative arousability-personal distresswas assessed with physiological responses. In general, sympathy was associated with relatively highlevels of regulation, teacher-reported positive emotionality and general emotional intensity, and es-pecially for boys, high social functioning and low levels of negative emotionality, including physio-logical reactivity to a distress stimulus, \kgal tone was positively related to boys' self-reported sym-pathy, whereas the pattern was reversed for girls.

In the last decade, there has been increasing recognition ofthe role of emotion in social functioning. Although relevant re-search is limited, the ways in which individuals express andmanage their emotions appear to be related to the quality ofsocial functioning(Hubbard & Coie, l994;Parke, 1994). How-ever, in much of the research on this topic, the focus has beenon directly experienced emotion, that is, emotion derived fromone's own experience. Yet emotion sometimes is vicariously in-duced, and one might reasonably expect emotional states thatare engendered by exposure to another's emotion or situationto affect the quality of people's social interactions.

Most of the work on vicarious emotional responding pertainsto empathy-related reactions (see, however, Davies & Cum-mings, 1994). Empathy often is denned as an emotional re-sponse resulting from the recognition of another's emotionalstate or condition, a response which is very similar or identicalto what the other individual is perceived to experience. Sympa-thy frequently is viewed as stemming from empathy (e.g., Ei-

Nancy Eisenberg and Bridget Murphy, Department of Psychology,Arizona State University; Richard A. Fabes, Mariss Karbon, and Mela-nie Smith, Department of Family Resources and Human Development,Arizona State University; Pat Maszk, Division of Psychology in Educa-tion, Arizona State University.

This research was supported by a grant from the National ScienceFoundation (DBS-9208375) and a Research Scientist DevelopmentAward from the National Institute of Mental Health (K02 MHOO9O3).We wish to thank the many students who assisted in this study, particu-larly Cloe Calmatta, Patrick Lynch, Maureen Jobe, Shannon Walters,and Heidi Wyman, and we also thank Joseph Goodroad for his assis-tance in designing physiological software. In addition, we are grateful tothe children and parents in this study, and the teachers in the ChildStudy Laboratory and Child Development Laboratory and in the Kyr-ene, Mesa, Scottsdale, and Tempe elementary school districts inArizona.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed toNancy Eisenberg, Department of Psychology, Arizona State University,Tempe, Arizona 85287-1104.

senberg & Fabes, 1990; Hoffman, 1982) and is denned as feel-ings of sorrow for another or concern based on the perceptionof another's emotional state or condition. Sympathy can derivefrom direct perception of emotional or situational cues or fromthe receipt of symbolic information (e.g., by means oflanguage) about another's situation or emotional state. Bothempathy and sympathy have been conceptually linked to posi-tive behaviors; theorists have argued that people who experienceothers' negative emotions should be motivated to alleviate theirdistress and cease aggression directed toward others (e.g., Bat-son, 1991; Eisenberg & Fabes, 1990; Hoffman, 1982; Staub,1984). In general, the results of empirical studies have sup-ported these conceptually based expectations (Davis, 1994;Eisenberg & Fabes, 1990; Eisenberg & Miller, 1987; Miller &Eisenberg, 1988). However, empathy sometimes may result ina self-focused, egoistic reaction (referred to as personaldistress)instead of, or in addition to, sympathy (Batson, 1991; Eisenberg& Fabes, 1990); thus, the theoretical link between sympathyand positive social functioning is clearer for sympathy than forempathy.

Despite the conceptual and practical importance of empathyand sympathy, relatively little is known about the correlates ofdispositional sympathy and empathy (see Davis, 1994), partic-ularly for children (Eisenberg & Mussen, 1989). Eisenberg andFabes (1990, 1992) suggested that individual differences in thetendency to experience sympathy are due in part to differencesamong people in their typical level of vicarious emotional re-sponding. Specifically, they have argued that people who canmaintain their emotional reactions within a tolerable range(i.e., not so arousing as to be highly aversive) are likely to expe-rience sympathy; such individuals experience how needy or dis-tressed others feel but are relatively unlikely to become over-whelmed by their emotion and self-focused. In contrast, peoplewho are susceptible to emotional overarousal and high levelsof vicarious negative emotion are expected to experience theirvicariously induced emotion as aversive and, consequently, totypically exhibit personal distress (Batson, 1991; Davis, 1994;

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196 EISENBERG ET AL.

also see Hoffman, 1982). Consistent with this view, general neg-ative emotional arousal has been found to result in a self-focus(Wood, Saltzberg, & Goldsamt, 1990), and aversive personaldistress reactions have been associated with low levels of proso-cial behavior (Batson, 1991;Eisenberg&Fabes, 1990).

On the basis of this line of reasoning, Eisenberg and Fabes(1992) proposed that individual differences in the tendency toexperience sympathy versus personal distress vary as a functionof dispositional differences in both emotional intensity (i.e., thetypical intensity of individuals' emotional response when theyexperience an emotion; Larsen & Diener, 1987) and individu-als' ability to regulate their emotional reactions (e.g., preventemotional overarousal and high negative emotion) and emo-tionally driven behavior. Regulation reflects a range of relatedprocesses, including neurophysiological regulation, attentionalprocesses, construals of emotionally arousing events (e.g., in-formation processing), encoding of internal emotion cues, cop-ing reactions, and regulating demands in situations (Eisenberg& Fabes, 1992; Thompson, 1994). People high in constructivemodes of regulation, such as attentional control (e.g., attentionfocusing and shifting; Derryberry & Rothbart, 1988) and theability to inhibit behavior, were hypothesized to be relativelyhigh in sympathy regardless of emotional intensity; those atleast moderately high in emotional intensity were expected tobe relatively sympathetic if they also were well regulated. Well-regulated people would be expected to modulate their vicari-ously induced negative vicarious emotion and maintain an op-timal level of emotional arousal—one that has emotional forceand enhances attention but is not so aversive and physiologicallyarousing that it engenders a self-focus. In contrast, people lowin the ability to regulate their emotion, especially if they areemotionally intense, were hypothesized to experience empathicoverarousal, to become self-focused in their attentional focuswhen experiencing vicariously induced negative emotion(Wood et al., 1990), and, hence, to be low in sympathy.

There is some empirical support for Eisenberg and Fabes's(1992) hypothesis that emotional intensity and regulation areassociated with sympathy, but most of the findings are for adultsamples. Measures of emotional intensity (El), emotionality,and arousability have been associated with reported individualdifferences in the tendency to experience empathy, sympathy,and personal distress (Davis, 1994; Mehrabian, 1977). In gen-eral, the link between personal distress reactions and negativeemotionality (rather than general emotionality intensity, whichtaps intensity of emotion, regardless of valence) has been some-what stronger than the association between sympathy and neg-ative emotionality (Davis, 1994). Furthermore, children andadults exhibit higher skin conductance (SC) in response to dis-tressing than sympathy-inducing stimuli, suggesting that dis-tress, more than sympathy, is associated with high arousal(Eisenberg, Fabes, Schaller, Carlo, & Miller, 1991; Eisenberg,Fabes, Schaller, Miller, et al., 1991). In support of the proposedimportance of regulation, Rothbart, Ahadi, and Hershey(1994) found that mothers' reports of their children's effortfulcontrol were positively correlated with mothers' reports of their7-year-olds' empathy. Furthermore, high regulation has beenlinked to low levels of infants' vicariously induced distress(Ungereretal., 1990).

In recent work with adults, support for Eisenberg and Fabes's

(1992) model has been mixed. Among older adults, self-re-ported dispositional sympathy was associated with high levelsof both negative emotional intensity and regulation (Eisenberg& Okun, in press); among younger adults, sympathy was re-lated to negative emotional intensity, but evidence of a positiverelation to regulation was weak (Eisenberg, Fabes, Murphy,Karbon, Maszk, et al., 1994). In contrast, self-focused disposi-tional personal distress reactions were related to low levels ofregulatory skills and high El (in regard to negative emotions) inboth studies. Similarly, Fabes and Eisenberg (1995) reportedthat vagal tone (an index of emotional regulation; Porges, Dous-sard-Roosevelt, & Maiti, 1994) was inversely related to youngadults1 dispositional personal distress. In a study of young chil-dren's situational vicarious emotion, children high in con-cerned facial reactions to a tape of distressed others were ratedby their teachers (but not by mothers) as high in attentionalcontrol and relatively low in negative emotional intensity(Eisenberg & Fabes, 1995). The negative relation between chil-dren's concerned reactions and negative emotional intensitylikely was due to teachers' weighing disruptive negative emo-tions highly when rating emotional intensity (see Eisenberg,Fabes, Nyman, etal., 1994).

A major goal in the present study was to assess the relationsof individual differences in children's emotionality and regula-tion to dispositional sympathy-empathy as assessed by teacherand self-reports. Mothers' and teachers' reports of various as-pects of emotionality (including general emotional intensity, aswell as positive and negative emotionality) and regulation wereassessed contemporaneously and, for many variables, 2 yearsbefore the measurement of sympathy. High levels of regulationand moderately high general emotional intensity were expectedto be associated with sympathy, and sympathy was expected tobe greatest for children high in both general emotional intensityand regulation. We were unsure what to expect in regard to neg-ative emotionality because it was positively related to adults'sympathy (Eisenberg, Fabes, Murphy, Karbon, et al., 1994;Eisenberg & Okun, in press) but was negatively related in astudy with children (Eisenberg & Fabes, 1995). Nonetheless,frequency (rather than intensity) of negative emotionality wasnot expected to be associated with high sympathy; this is be-cause high frequency of negative emotion theoretically is ex-pected to be linked to high emotionality intensity combinedwith low levels of most forms of constructive regulation(Eisenberg & Fabes, 1992). As has been found for adults(Eisenberg, Fabes, Murphy, Karbon, et al., 1994), positive emo-tionality was expected to be related to sympathy; this associa-tion was predicted because both sympathy and positive emo-tionality are viewed as outcomes of optimal levels of emotionregulation (Eisenberg & Fabes, 1992). Furthermore, the com-ponents of emotionality and regulation assessed in this studytypically are viewed as aspects of temperament and, conse-quently, would be expected to be relatively stable over time.Thus, we expected individual differences in emotionality andregulation when children were in preschool or kindergarten topredict sympathy 2 years later. However, although relations be-tween sympathy and individual differences in regulation andemotionality were expected to hold from a relatively young age,the association between regulation and sympathy may increasein the early years as children become better able to take others'

DISPOSITIONAL EMPATHY-RELATED RESPONDING 197

perspectives and to differentiate between their own and others'needs (see Hoffman, 1982).

In addition to questionnaire measures of regulation, we as-sessed vagal tone. Vagal tone, a measure derived from heart rate(HR), is viewed as a marker of dispositional emotional regula-tion (particularly individual differences in parasympathetictone; Porges et al., 1994). After early infancy, vagal tone andheart rate variability (HRV; a measure highly related to vagaltone; Izard et al., 1991) have been associated with uninhibitedand assertive behavior, sociability, expressiveness, the ability todeal with new situations (Fox, 1989; Fox & Field, 1989; Rez-nick, 1989), and sustained attention (Suess, Porges, & Plude,1994). In one study of vicarious emotional responding, HRVwas positively related to markers of sympathy and negativelyrelated to markers of personal distress (Fabes, Eisenberg, &Eisenbud, 1993). If vagal tone is indeed an index of emotionalregulation, it would be expected to be linked to dispositionalsympathy.

Both HR and SC reactions also were obtained while childrenviewed a tape of a child injured in a fire. This film segmentwas relatively distressing; thus, physiological reactions to it wereviewed as a measure of children's situational vicarious negativeemotionality. Because people who are prone to sympathy arebelieved to modulate their vicarious distress better than thosewho tend to become empathically overaroused (i.e., experiencepersonal distress), high physiological arousal in response to thedistress film was viewed as indicative of personal distress ratherthan sympathy (Eisenberg & Fabes, 1990), as well as a situa-tional index of negative emotional intensity.

The second goal of the present study was to examine the rela-tion of children's sympathetic-empathic responding to thequality of their social functioning. Researchers often have as-sumed that empathy and related emotions such as sympathyare an aspect of emotional competence (Saarni, 1990) and arerelated to the quality of social functioning (Feshbach & Fesh-bach, 1986; Shure, 1982). Sympathy might be expected to berelated to high levels of social competence (e.g., socially appro-priate behavior and peer acceptance) and negatively associatedwith problem behaviors (e.g., aggression and disruptivebehavior) for at least two additional reasons. First, sympathyinvolves an other-orientation and has been linked to prosocialbehavior; thus, sympathetic people would, in general, be ex-pected to act in a positive and socially appropriate manner insocial interactions. Second, both sympathetic reactions andcompetent social functioning are believed to derive, in part,from emotional or behavioral regulation; thus, dispositionalsympathy and social competence should be correlated becauseof their common underlying origins (Eisenberg & Fabes, 1992).Consistent with this view, difficulties in regulating emotion andemotionally driven behavior are common in the description anddiagnosis of children's behavioral disorders (e.g., AmericanPsychiatric Association, 1994); moreover, lack of guilt or con-cern for others is considered an aspect of emotional dysfunctionassociated with some types of behavioral disorders (Cole &Zahn- Waxier, 1992).

Other than research on prosocial behavior, there is little re-search on the relation of empathy and sympathy to social skillsand social functioning (e.g., Hubbard & Coie, 1994), In a meta-analytic review, Eisenberg and Miller (1987) found a weak but

significant relation (.11) between empathy (broadly denned)and social competence for 10 studies (the majority of whichwere unpublished). In the one recent study on situational sym-pathy (Eisenberg & Fabes, 1995), 4- to 6-year-olds' concernedfacial reactions to an empathy-inducing film were positively re-lated to teachers' ratings of social skills and children's real-lifeconstructive anger reactions but not sociometric status.

In the present study, children's social competence was as-sessed with teacher reports of prosocial behavior, peer accep-tance, social skills, and aggressive and disruptive behaviors; pa-rental reports of problem behaviors; peer sociometric status;and children's enacted puppet behaviors in hypothetical peerconflict situations. Sympathy was expected to be associatedwith constructive social behavior, popularity, and low levels ofproblem behavior.

Method

Participants

Participants were 82 kindergarten to second-grade children (38 girls,44 boys; Mage = 87 months, SD = 7.08, range = 71 to 102), theirparents, and teachers. The children were part of a larger sample of 94children who were studied for two contiguous semesters (T1 and T2; seebelow) approximately 2 years ago (M age = 54 months for the childrenremaining at 6 to 8 years of age; range = 43 to 68 months at the begin-ning of the first assessment [ TI ] and were about 4 months older at thebeginning of the second assessment [T2]). At Tl and T2, the childrenwere in preschool or kindergarten (the kindergarten was at a preschool;Eisenberg & Fabes, 1995; Eisenberg et al., 1993; Eisenberg, Fabes, Ny-man, et al., 1994). Of the 82 families (87% of the original sample) whocould be contacted and who agreed to participate at the follow up, 74(79% of the original sample) came to the laboratory; parent and teacherdata were obtained by mail for the additional 8 children (4 girls and 4boys). Of the 12 children for whom additional data were not available,1 moved during the first assessment, 5 refused to participate in the fol-low-up, and 6 could not be contacted or located (several had movedoverseas). The children were predominantly from White, middle-classfamilies in suburbs of a large city (91%); 4% were Black, 1% was ofAsian heritage, 1% was Hispanic, and 2% were of mixed origin. Meanyears of maternal and paternal education in this follow-up were 16.51(SD = 2.22; range - 12 [high school] to 20 [graduate school]) and17.39 (SD = 2.18; range = 11 to 20), respectively. Family incomeranged from $18,000 to $300,000 (M = $78,000, SD = 44,130; median= 65,000). Eight-six percent of the children came from two-parenthomes.1

Procedure

The initial data for this sample were collected during two academicsemesters of I school year (henceforth labeled Tl and T2; these data arecombined when possible); the follow-up took place 2 years from thebeginning of T2 (henceforth called T3). Measures of children's dispo-sitional sympathy were administered to teachers and children at T3.Questionnaires concerning children's social functioning, regulation,

1 Children who were in this follow-up differed little from childrenwho were not in the follow-up (on demographic characteristics, regula-tion, or emotionality at T1-T2). Two of 3 children of Asian origin werenot available at T3, whereas all 3 African American children were,Cramer's V = .36, p < .038 (this sample is the same as in Eisenberg etal., 1995).


and emotionality were administered to teachers and teacher aides (thelatter at T1 and T2 only) and parents, some at T1 and / or T2 and someat T3. At T1 and T2, children were administered a sociometric task latein the school term; at Tl and T3, they participated in a puppet enact-ment task used to assess socially competent social scripts; and at T3,their physiological reactions to a baseline film and a distressing filmsegment were obtained.

The children's teachers, but not aides, were the same at Tl and T2,but differed from the teachers at T3. Teacher measures were adminis-tered near the end of the semester (teachers and aides were paid for theirparticipation). At T1 and T2, parent respondents were mothers; at T3,79 mothers and 2 fathers were the primary respondents (A s - 80-81 forparent variables). Also at T3, fathers filled out the problem behaviorchecklist (N = 63). At TI-T2, parent measures were sent home to becompleted (N = 81)). At T3, mothers usually filled out the question-naires at the laboratory, although questionnaires were mailed to 8 fam-ilies (most of whom had moved). Father questionnaires at T3 usuallywere taken home by the mother or sent by mail.

Children and a parent (nearly all mothers) came individually to thelaboratory at T3 (w = 74). A same-sex experimenter attached two 8-mm silver-silver chloride SC electrodes to the palmar surface of thechild's left hand (using a 9% saline Unibase cream mixture in theelectrodes) and then placed two prejelled disposable electrocardiographelectrodes on the child's front ribs, near their sides, and a third electrode(a ground) on the back. The electrodes were linked to a Colbourne S71-23 skin conductance coupler and Colbourne impedance pneumographcoupler (S73-22, measuring HR and respiration), as well as to a com-puter and Grass physiograph (all in the adjoining room). Parent andchild were together during the hook up and then were separated. Parentswent to another room and filled out questionnaires regarding theirchild's emotionality, regulation, and problem behavior.

Approximately 20 min after applying the electrodes (during whichthe child filled out some questionnaires unrelated to the procedures tofollow), the child saw the baseline film. This film was introduced as afilm about dolphins and was used to obtain baseline physiological data.During the film, the child's left arm was loosely strapped to the arm ofthe chair to reduce movement. The experimenter left the child aloneduring the film. The child's HR, SC, and respiration were monitoredthroughout. After viewing the film, the child called the experimenterback with a bell.

After completing some filler questions regarding their reactions to thefilm, children then viewed the distress film segment about a child in-jured in a fire and her recovery. This film was introduced as a real storyabout a child who was approximately the participant's own age. Chil-dren viewed the second film alone; physiological responses were ob-tained throughout. After the films, the child was administered the en-acted puppet measures and then the empathy-sympathy questionnaire.Finally, children were debriefed and asked if they were willing to sign arelease to allow us to use their videotape (all agreed).

Measures-

Overview

Measures of the following constructs were obtained at one or moredata collection periods: dispositional vicarious emotional responding,regulation, emotionality, and social functioning. Similar measures ob-tained from teachers or parents at both Tl and T2 were combinedacross time because of the short time span between the two assessments,the need to reduce the number of measures, and the fact that aggrega-tion increases the reliability of measures. Measures of dispositional vi-carious emotional responding are described first, followed by measuresof dispositional regulation, dispositional emotionality, and social func-tioning. Next, the T3 film stimuli are described, as are the physiologicalmeasures of emotional responding to the distress segment.

Measures of Dispositional Sympathy-Empathy

Dispositional measures of children's sympathetic-empathic tenden-cies were obtained from teachers and children at T3 only. The children'smeasure contained seven items: three sympathy items from Eisenberg,Fabes, Schaller, Carlo, and Miller (1991; e.g., "I often feel sorry forpeople who don't have the things I have," "When I see someone beingpicked on, I feel kind of sorry for them," and "I often feel sorry for otherchildren who are sad or are in trouble") and four items from Bryant's(1982) empathy scale ("It makes me sad to see a girl who can't findanyone to play with," "I get upset when I see a girl being hurt," andanalogous items with male targets). The items selected from Bryant'sscale were those that have factored together in Bryant's and our pastresearch (Bryant, personal communication, April 1986; Eisenberg etal., 1988) and most clearly tap concern and empathy for another. Thealpha for this scale was .73 and is henceforth labeled as the children'ssympathy scale because of the predominance of sympathy items. How-ever, it is possible that some of the items from the Bryant questionnairetapped empathy or personal distress, as well as sympathy.2

Teachers' reports of children's sympathy-empathy were assessed withthree items (a = .86): (a) two embedded in the teachers' measure ofsocial functioning (e.g., "The child often feels sorry for others who areless fortunate" and "The child gets upset when she/he sees anotherchild being hurt") rated on a 4-point scale (see description below), and(b) an item embedded in the measure of negative and positive affectivityin which the teacher rated "how often this child feels on the average'1—"sympathetic" (from 1 = very slightly or not at all to 5 = extremely).The items were standardized and averaged.

Measures of Regulation

Measures of children's regulation consisted of adults' reports of chil-dren's attentional regulation, impulsivity and inhibition control, andglobal self-control, as well as vagal tone.

Attentional control. At T2, attention shifting and attention focusingwere assessed with items adapted from Derryberry and Rothbart's(1988) temperament measure (e.g., "When interrupted or distracted,my child often forgets what he/she was about to say" and "My child'sattention is easily disrupted if there are people talking in the roomaround him/her" for attention shifting and focusing; rated 1 = ex-tremely untrue to 7 = extremely true). A seven-item attentional controlcomposite was computed using the items from both scales (as = .89,.77, and .61 for teachers, aides, and parents, respectively), and teachers'and aides' ratings of attentional control at T2 were averaged (see Eisen-berg etal., 1993, for details).

At T3, the two constructs were assessed with items from Rothbart'sChild Behavior Questionnaire (CBQ; see Goldsmith & Rothbart, 1991)rated on a 7-point scale (from 1 = never truelol = almost always true).Some items for teachers were slightly modified (the CBQ was designedfor parents); there were 12 items per scale for teachers and 10 attention-focusing and 11 attention-shifting items for mothers (slightly feweritems were used for mothers because they responded to more scales).Attention focusing (e.g., "My [this] child will move from one task toanother without completing any of them" [reversed]; «s = .90 and .64for teachers and mothers) and attention shifting ("My [this] child caneasily shift from one activity to another,11 as = .90 and .77) were keptseparate in preliminary analyses because they did not factor togetherfor parents (see below). Indeed, parental reports of attention shiftingand focusing, which were related at T1-T2, were unrelated at T3, r{ 78)

2 Children's social desirability was assessed with 13 items from theCrandall, Crandall, and Katkovsky's (1965) Social Desirability Scale(a = .61). Scores on this measure were unrelated to children's reportsof sympathy.


= .06, ns, although teacher reports of attention shifting and focusingwere positively related, r( 78) = ,56, p < .001.

Impulsivity, inhibition control, and global self-control. At T3, moth-ers were administered the impulsivity and inhibition control subscalesof the CBQ (rated on a 7-point scale). Impulsivity was assessed with 13items (e.g., "My child often rushes into new situations," a = .83), aswas inhibition control (the ability to inhibit action; e.g., "My child canlower his/her voice when asked to do so," a = .82).

In addition, teachers were administered Kendall and Wilcox's (1979)33-item Self-Control Rating Scale, whereas parents were administered22 items from the same scale (rated 7-point scales). To avoid overlapwith the measures of social functioning, we dropped items concerningmisbehavior (e.g., appropriate reactions when reprimanded, breakingrules), academic performance (doing better if he/she paid more atten-tion to work), and negative behaviors in peer interaction (e.g., buttinginto games, grabbing belongings of others). Most of the remaining itemsconcerned children's ability to inhibit behavior (e.g., "Does this childsit still?" and "Does this child watch where he or she is going?"); a fewconcerned attention regulation (e.g., "Does the child do too manythings at once, or does he or she concentrate on one thing at a time?").Alphas for the teachers' (20 items) and parents' (11 items) scales were.94 and .72, respectively.

Vagal tone. Children's (n - 74) vagal tone was computed with Por-ges's (1985) MXEDIT software using the HR data collected while theyobserved part of a calm meditation him about swimming dolphins(Bugental, Blue, Cortez, Fleck, & Rodriguez, 1992). Vagal tone wascomputed using 141 s of this film (all but the first 15 s), with a bandpasssetting of 0.24 to 1.04 and a sample period setting of 250.

Measures of Dispositional Emotionality (El)

Teachers, teacher aides, and mothers reported on children's emo-tional intensity (El) at Tl, T2, and T3; on children's dispositional au-tonomic reactivity at T2; and on positive and negative affect at T3. Inaddition, mothers reported on children's temperamental anger andsoothability (falling reactivity) at T3.

Emotional intensity. At Tl, teachers, aides, and mothers rated chil-dren's El with five items (e.g., "This child tends to get nervous or dis-tressed easily") adapted from Larsen and EHener's (1987) Affective In-tensity Scale (1 = usually false; 5 = usually true). At T2, the El scaleincluded eight items (1 = extremely untrue, 7 = extremely true; seeEisenberg et al., 1993). Items at Tl and T2 pertained to negative emo-tions such as anger or anxiety or general arousability; none directly as-sessed positive emotion. Alphas for teachers, aides, and parents were.88, .87, and .79, respectively, at Tl; and .84, .67, .62 at T2 (after drop-ping one item that lowered the alpha). Teachers' and aides' El ratingswere averaged at both Tl and T2; then both mothers' and teachers'/aides' ratings were averaged across Tl and T2 (see Eisenberg et al.,1993, for details). These composite T1-T2 measures were used in allanalyses.

At T3, the scale was expanded to 16 items; negative, positive (e.g.,"When this child is happy, he/she bubbles over with emotion") andgeneral (e.g., "My child responds very emotionally to things aroundhim/her") El were differentiated. Alphas were .91 and .84 for teachers'and parents' six positive items; .84 and .74 for the negative items; and.79 and .60 for the four general items.

Dispositional affectivity and autonomic reactivity. At T2, auto-nomic reactivity was assessed with items adapted from Derryberry andRothbart's (1988) autonomic reactivity subscales (e.g., "This child'spalms usually sweat during an important event"). Alphas for the five-item autonomic reactivity scale were ,83, .74, and .66 for teachers, aides,and mothers. Teachers' and aides' reports of children's autonomic reac-tivity were correlated, r(79) = .26, p < .02, and were averaged at T2 tocreate a more reliable measure.

At T3, teachers, mothers, and fathers reported on children's disposi-tional positive and negative affectivity with 15 items, most from the Pos-itive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS; Watson, Clark, & Tellegen,1988). Respondents were asked to report "how this child feels on theaverage" (from 1 = very slightly or not al all to 5 = extremely) for 12negative emotions (distressed, upset, sad, guilty, scared, jittery, irritable,angry, ashamed, nervous, afraid, and hostile) as well as 3 positive emo-tions (excited, inspired, and enthusiastic). Alphas for negative and pos-itive affect were .90 and .87 for teachers; .87 and .60 for mothers; and.88 and .73 for fathers.

In addition, mothers at T3 reported on two other aspects of tempera-ment related to emotionality with items from the CBQ (Goldsmith &Rothbart, 1991): (a) anger-frustration (e.g., "My child gets angry whentold he/she has to go to bed," 13 items; a = .80) and (b) soothability(e.g., "My child changes from being upset to feeling much better withina few minutes," 13 items, a = .77). Items were rated on a 7-point scale.

Reduction ofTl-T2 mother and teacher emotionality temperamentdata. Autonomic reactivity was significantly correlated with El, r( 70)= .41 andr(79) = .54,ps < .001, for mothers and teachers (reports ofautonomic reactivity usually reflected negative emotions such asanxiety). Thus, these two variables were standardized and averaged,separately, for mothers and for teachers. The resultant negative emo-tionality composites, in addition to attentional control, were the fourT1-T2 measures used in subsequent analyses (see Table 1 for a sum-mary of the composite scores of emotionality and regulation).

Reduction of the T3 parent regulation and emotionality data. At T3,a variety of indexes of general temperamental regulation and emotion-ality were obtained for parents (all mothers except 2): attention shift-ing, attentional focusing, impulsivity, inhibition control, soothability,self-control, anger-frustration, PANAS negative and positive affectivity,and negative, positive, and general El. All of these variables except gen-eral El were subjected to a principal-components factor analysis with avarimax rotation. For conceptual reasons, general El was excluded fromthe analysis because it was important to retain a measure of El indepen-dent of dispositional positive and negative affectivity (Eisenberg &Fabes, 1992). Positive and negative El were included in the analysis withthe other measures of emotionality because it is clear in prior work thatpositive and negative El have very different correlates and are not highlyrelated (r = .05 in this study), although both were moderately, positivelycorrelated with general El, r(77) = .31 andr(78) = .32, ps < .004 and.005, respectively.

The factor analysis resulted in three factors: (a) unregulated negativeemotionality, accounting for 33% of the variance (eigenvalue 3.58), in-cluding anger-frustration (.75), soothability (-.76), negative affectiv-ity (.63), negative El (.84), and attention shifting (-.59); (b) regula-tion, accounting for 19% of the variance (eigenvalue = 2.05), includingattentional focusing (.76), impulsivity (-.70), self-regulation (.85),and inhibition control (.78); and (c) positive emotionality, accountingfor 14% of the variance (eigenvalue = 1.53), including positive El (.77)and positive affectivity (,90). All other loadings were .48 or lower. Threecomposite scores were computed by standardizing and averaging (afterreversing when appropriate) scores for scales on each factor. These com-posite scores, along with the score for general El, were the four T3 pa-rental predictor variables.

Reduction ofT3 teachers' regulation and emotionality data. At T3,teacher measures of emotionality and regulation included attentionshifting, attention focusing, self-control, PANAS negative and positiveaffectivity, and positive, negative, and general El. A factor analysis wasperformed for all of these scales except general El. A preliminary factoranalysis resulted in two factors, one containing all variables except pos-itive affectivity and positive El (46% of the variance; eigenvalue = 3.23),and a second factor containing the latter two scales (26% of the variance;eigenvalue - 1.81). The fact that so many measures grouped in the firstfactor seemed to be due to the relatively high correlations of the self-


Table 1Composite Scores for the Major Measures of Emotionality and Regulation

Time Parent and teacher composite measure

T1-T2 (age 4 to 6 years):Parent and teacher measures

Negative emotionality

Attentionai control

Time 3 (age 6 to 8 years)Teacher

Negative emotionality

Positive emotionality

General emotional intensityRegulation

ParentUnregulated negative affect

Positive emotionality

General emotional intensityRegulation

Average of emotional intensity (averaged across T1-T2) andautonomic arousal (averaged across Tl-T2)

Averaged of attention shifting (averaged across TI-T2) andattention focusing (averaged across T1-T2)

Average of negative affectivity, negative emotional intensity,and attention shifting (reversed)

Average of positive affectivity and positive emotionalintensity

General emotional intensityAverage of attention focusing, inhibition control, and self-

control

Average of negative affectivity, negative emotional intensity,anger-frustration, attention shifting (reversed), andsoothability (reversed)

Average of positive affectivity and positive emotionalintensity

General emotional intensityAverage of attention focusing, inhibition control, and self-

control

Note. T1 = Time 1; T2 = Time 2.

control scale with all other variables in the first factor (absolute valuesof rs ranged from .42 to .80). However, perusal of die correlations indi-cated that the three regulation variables correlated more highly withone another {n ranged from .55 to .80) than withdispositional negativeaffectivity and negative El (rs ranged from .29 to .57). Moreover, thenegative affectivity and El scales related somewhat differently to mea-sures of sympathy than did the regulation scales. For these reasons, andto be more comparable with the teacher data, three regulation and emo-tionality composite scores were computed by standardizing and averag-ing interrelated scales: (a) regulation, including attention shifting, at-tention focusing, and self-regulation; (b) negative emotionality, includ-ing negative affectivity and EJ, r{l%) = .64, p < .001, between tae two;and (c) positive emotionality, including positive affectivity and El,r(78) = .75, p < .001, between the two. These composite scores, inaddition to scores for general El, were used in analyses examining therelations of T3 regulation and emotionality to T3 sympathy.

Measures of Social Functioning

Measures of social functioning were obtained from teachers, mothers,and children.

Teachers. Measures obtained from teachers (and teachers' aides) in-cluded ratings of children's socially appropriate behavior (Tl, T2, andT3; henceforth called social skills), popularity (T3), and aggressive,disruptive, prosocial, and socially insecure behavior (T3). At T! andT2, the teachers and aides rated the children's general social skills usinga seven-item adaptation of Barter's (1979) Perceived Competence Scalefor Children (e.g., "This child usually acts appropriately" vs. "Thischild usually does not act appropriately"; see Eisenberg et al., 1993; a4-point scale was used). Alphas for the scale for aides and teachers atthe two administrations ranged from .89 to .91 (throughout, alphas forTl andT2 are those computed for the original sample). Teachers' andaides' ratings of social skills were standardized and averaged both withintime period and across time; these aggregate scores were used in analy-

ses (see Eisenberg et al., 1993). Four of the same items were readrninis-leredatT3(a=.?6).

At T3, as part of the measure of social skills, teachers also rated chil-dren's popularity with three items (e.g., "This child has lots of friends,"a = .94). In addition, teachers at T3 also completed items from Coie,Terry, Dodge, and Underwood's (1993) Teacher Checklist pertaining tofour subscales (alphas are in parentheses): prosocial behavior, includingleadership skills, perspective taking, and sharing ("This child is verygood at understanding other people's feelings," four items, .86), aggres-sion ("this child says mean things to peers, such as teasing or namecalling" eight items, .93), socially insecure ('This child is self-con-scious and easily embarrassed," eight items, .85), and disruptive behav-ior ("This child bothers other kids when they are trying to work," eightitems, .90). One item pertaining to being a good athlete was droppedfrom the prosocial subscale for conceptual reasons.

To reduce the number of measures of social functioning at T3, weperformed a factor analysis with a varirnax rotation on the mean scoresfor the six aforementioned T3 teacher scales. Social skills { -.83), ag-gression (.90), and disruptive behavior (.87) loaded on the first factor(eigenvalue = 3.47; 58% of the variance); popularity (.90), insecurity(-.91), and prosocial behavior (.74) loaded on the second factor(eigenvalue - 1.40; 23% of the variance). There were no cross-loadingsabove .42. Thus, scores on aggression, disruptive behavior, and socialskills subscales were standardized (after reverse scoring the first two)and averaged to form a composite score, henceforth called teacher re-pott of nonaggressivesocially appropriate behavior. Similarly, popular-ity, social insecurity (reversed), and prosocial behavior subscales werestandardized and averaged (henceforth called teacher report of proso-cial-socially competent behavior).

Parents. Parent measures of social functioning consisted of reportsof problem behaviors obtained at T3. Specifically, mothers and fatherscompleted the Conduct Problems Prevention Research Groups ChildProblem Behavior Checklist (Lochman & the Conduct Problems Pre-vention Research Group, in press). All 24 items except 1 pertaining to


setting fires were included (e.g., "disobedient," "threatens or bulliesother children," "takes things that belong to others," and "defiant to-ward adults"). Parents rated each item from 1 = never to 4 = often.Alphas were .88 for mothers and .87 for fathers.

Children. Children's sociometric status at Tl and T2 was assessedusing procedures similar to those of Asher, Singleton, Tinsley, and Hy-mel (1979). Children sorted pictures of the classmates into three piles("really like to play with" [coded 3] , "like to play with some" [coded2] , and "like to play with only a little bit" [coded 1]). Scores weresummed and standardized within class and sex at both T1 and T2; thenscores for same- and other-sex children were both averaged together andaveraged across time (see Eisenberg et al., 1993).

Children's social scripts for behavior in peer contexts were assessed atTl and T3 with a procedure in which they acted out with same-sexpuppets how they would behave in five peer interaction situations (e.g.,the child's art work was ridiculed by a peer; adapted from Mize & Ladd,1988). Children's responses at Tl were related to their real-life angerbehaviors and adults' reports of their coping and emotionality(Eisenberg, Fabes, Minore, Mathy, Hanish, & Brown, 1994). After en-acting a vignette, the child was asked "What would you do then?,""Show me," and "Why would you do that?" Responses were audiotaped(see Eisenberg, Fabes, Minore, et al., 1994, for details). Two judgesrated the children's strategies on the dimension of friendliness versushostility with a 5-point scale (based on the likelihood of prosocial vs.negative outcomes for the peer and general tone; see Eisenberg, Fabes,Minore, et al., 1994). In addition, presence versus absence of enactedaggression was coded. Kappas computed for data from 35 children atT1 and 36 children at T3 were .84 or higher. Alphas were .70 and .73 forfriendliness and physical aggression, respectively, at Tl and .60 and .62at T3. Because aggression and friendliness ratings were highly corre-lated, r(73) = - .70 and r(70) = - .56 ,ps <.001, at Tl and T3, respec-tively, after summing across vignettes, scores on aggression and friend-liness were standardized, and the former was subtracted from the latterto form a composite score. At T3, all codings of aggression were forboys; thus, girls' composite scores reflected only ratings on friendlinessversus hostility.

Measures of Situational Emotionality in Response to theT3 Film Stimuli

In the experimental film context, children viewed a relaxing, baselinefilm and a distress-inducing film. Vagal tone during the baseline film wasused as an index of physiological regulation, and HR and SC reactions tothe distress segment were used as measures of situational emotional reac-tivity and vicariously induced distress.

Film stimuli. The baseline was part of a meditation film depicting dol-phins swimming peacefully in the ocean to calm music (Bugental et al.,1992). The film was 155 s long. The second film was a portion of an edu-cational film ("The Jody Fort Story") about a girl who was burned in afire at her home and included a segment in which the fire started. The filmbegan with 107 s of fairly neutral content (showing the girl's room andthen her studying and getting a snack); next was 24 s during which the fireoccurred (flames were shown, and Jody's parents were shown jumpingoutof bed to respond to Jody's screams). The latter section on the fire wasused to assess physiological reactions to a distressing stimulus.3 The filmsegments were chosen a priori by several psychologists.

Heart rate. HR data were sampled every 10 ms and were recorded on-line into a computer after being run through an A / D board (using CODASacquisition system). Additional software was used to detect each R wave,and the R-R intervals were calculated and stored in milliseconds. TheseHR samples were used to compute mean HR per half-second period(weighing the contribution of each HR according to the proportion of timeit occurred in each half period). When there was artifact in HR data as aresult of movement or talking (as determined by inspection of the paper

record of the raw HR data), the average of the HR beats immediatelybefore and after the artifact was used in place of each unusable data point.

Because we were interested in children's general HR accelerationthroughout the fire segment, mean HR for this entire 24-s segment (minusmean HR in the neutral, initial portion of the second film) was computedand used as an additional index of emotional reactivity in a distressingcontext. Although these two segments of HR did not differ significantly,approximately half of the children showed HR acceleration on the afore-mentioned difference score.

Respiration. Respiration was measured with input from the same elec-trodes used to obtain HR data. Respiration was measured 100 times persecond, and via software, number of respirations and when each began intime were computed. As is described shortly, respiration was used only toclean the SC data.

57cm conductance. Mean numbers of phasic responses per second werecomputed for 141 s of the baseline film and the 24 s during the distress(fire) segment SC data were run through a software program that com-puted phasic responses (using derivatives; based on John Cacioppo's pro-gram, personal communication, July 1986). Phasic responses included allSC responses that rose .05 *tmho or more, although responses of 2.5 stan-dard deviations larger than a child's mean SC response were assumed to beartifact (however, there were none). Moreover, any phasic response thatoccurred within 4 s after a child displayed a large, gross body movementwas considered artifact and was deleted. Large movements were coded offof the videotapes, and the interrater agreement the codings of movementswas .81 (kappa). Furthermore, if a phasic response occurred 1 to 3 s aftera large breath (i.e., one more than twice as large as the prior three breaths;see Bugental et al., 1992), the phasic response was deleted. This editingwas undertaken because yawns and large breaths can induce a SC response.To control for individual differences in SC responding, we computeddifference scores in which scores for the baseline film were subtracted fromscores during the distress segment. Difference scores were computed usingthe baseline film because it was longer than the neutral section, it was moreclearly low in any distressing content, and because number of phasic re-sponses rather than ongoing (tonic) level of SC was being assessed. How-ever, the findings were highly similar when the neutral section of the secondfilm rather than the baseline film was used in the difference scores.4

Results

Descriptive A nalyses

Relations With Age and Sex

The two measures of dispositional sympathy were significantlyrelated, r(74) = .38, p < .001. Age and sex differences for Tl andT2 measures for children in the study at that time are presented inEisenberg et al. (1995); sex differences for the children participat-ing at T3 are summarized in Table 2 (see Eisenberg et al., 1995,for more detail). There were few significant age differences and anumber of sex differences (i.e., girls were more socially competentand regulated). In regard to the measures of vicarious emotional

3 Children rated the degree to which the film caused distress and sym-pathy using adjectives similar to those discussed in Eisenberg and Fabes(1990). Children rated the film as moderately distressing (Af = 2.41)and sympathy inducing (Af= 3.33).

4 We also considered using mean height (delta) of the phasic responseas a measure of SC responding. However, baseline levels of this measurecorrelated with a number of measures of emotionality, regulation, andsocial functioning; thus, interpretation of change in delta was problem-atic. Baseline scores for number of phasic responses were related toother measures relatively infrequently.


Table 2Means and Standard Deviations for the Major Variables

Measure

T3 measures of dispositions! sympathyTeacher reports of sympathy"Child reports of sympathy

T3: Emotionality and regulationTeacher

Positive emotionality*Negative emotionality"General emotional intensityRegulation"

ParentPositive emotionalityUpregulated negative affect"General emotional intensityRegulation*

Physiological measuresNeutral film HRDistress segment HRHRNumber baseline SC/sNumber of distress SC/sSC difference scoreb

Vagal toneT1-T2: Emotionality and regulation

TeacherEmotional intensity-autonomic reactivity6

Attentional controlMothers

Emotional intensity-autonomic reactivity"Attentional control

Social functioningTeacher/aide: Social skills (Tl-T2)c

TeacherNonaggressive-socially appropriate behavior (T3)'Prosocial-socially competent behavior (T3)"

Mother: Problem behavior (T3)Father Problem behavior (T3)Peer status (Tl-T2)c

ChildTl enacted puppet composite0

T3 enacted puppet composite"

Giris

M

0.27**1.85

0.11-0.17

3.490.36***

0.09-0.16f

4.490.18t

93.1092.02-1,07

0.060,150.096.44

-0.18*4.43*

-0.134.60

0.33***

0.35***0.121.95***1.960.03

0.63**0.56*

SD

0.790.21

0.870.831.130.78

0.890.760.810.71

11.159.895.280.050.080.071.02

0.740.75

0.870.84

0.65

0.650.840.290.320.84

1,280.85

M

-0.241.82

-0.100.163.46

-0.31

-0.080.144.31

-0.16

90.4590.08-0.38

0.070.150.086.65

0.284.05

0.034.68

-0.34

-0.30-0.10

2.232.070.0 i

-0.67-0.45

Boys

SD

0.920.25

0.990.971.210.87

0.850.670.930.85

11.2214.879,070.050.080.061.23

0.940.89

0.910.73

0.91

0.970.910.380.360.81

2.132.16

Note. The significance notations are for t tests comparing the girls and boys still in the study at T3. HR = heart rate; SC = skin conductance; T1 =Time 1; T2 - Time 2; T3 « Time 3." Standardized composite score, difference score for rate per second. ''Composite score standardized within the larger sample at T1-T2.t/><.10. *p<.05. **p<.0\r ***p<.001.

responding and situational distress that are unique to this article,there were no significant age differences. However, teachers re-ported that girls were more sympathetic than boys, z(80) - 2.67,p < .009 (see Table 2). Because of the gender differences on nu-merous measures of social competence, regulation, and emotion-ality, and because findings often differed considerably for girls andboys, results frequently are presented by sex as well as for the com-bined sample.

Relations of Physiological Measures With AnalogousConstructs

HR and SC responding to the distress portion of the film werepositively related, r(69) = .27, p < .023 (both were unrelated

to vagal tone). For the total sample, only HR was related toadults' reports of emotionality; mean HR change was positivelycorrelated with parental reports of general emotional intensity,r( 70)« .25, p < .036. For boys, HR also was related to parents'reports of unregulated negative emotion, r(37) - .32, p < .045.In addition, boys who exhibited more SC in response to thedistress film were viewed by teachers as low in negative emo-tionality and general El, rs(36) = -.31 and—.33,ps< .06and.046, perhaps because teachers focus on externalizing negativeemotions such as anger when rating children's emotionality (seeEisenbergetal., 1993).

Vagal tone has strong conceptual links with both emotional-ity aad regulation (Forges et ah, 1994). However, as discussedin Eisenberg et al. (1995), correlations for vagal tone varied by


sex. When age was controlled (it correlated .20, ns, with boys*vagal tone), boys' vagal tone was marginally correlated with lowunregulated negative emotionality and low general emotionalintensity at T3, partial /"s(36) = -.30 and -.27, ps < .07 and.10. In contrast, girls' vagal tone was related to T3 teacher re-ports of high negative emotionality and low regulation, partialr( 31) = .39 and partial r(30) = -.30, ps < .03 and. 10.

Relations of Measures of Regulation and Emotionality toDispositional Sympathy

Teacher and child reports of dispositional sympathy were ex-amined in relation to the following: (a) contemporaneous (T3)teacher and parent reports of children's regulation, (b) teacherand mother reports of regulation and emotionality 2 years ear-lier (T1-T2), and (c) the T3 film-related measures of situa-tional emotional (i.e., distress) responding. The findings wereexamined separately for teacher- and child-reported sympathy.Note that the teachers at T1-T2 were not those at T3. Zero-order correlations are presented; the results of partial corre-lations controlling for age were very similar.

Teacher report of sympathy. As can be seen in Table 3, ingeneral, T3 teacher reports of sympathy were associated withteacher reports of high general El and positive emotionality atT3, low negative emotionality, and teacher and parent reportsof relatively high levels of regulation. Specifically, teacher re-ports of children's sympathy correlated with high teacher-re-ported positive emotionality and general El at T3, low negativeemotionality as reported by teachers at T1-T2 and T3(particularly for boys) and parents at T1-T2, T3 teacher andparent reports of regulation, and T1-T2 parent and teacher re-ports of boys' attentional regulation (the latter at p < .06). Inaddition, teacher reports of boys' sympathy were negatively re-lated to SC responses in reaction to the distress film segment(a marker of distress).5 Vagal tone was unrelated to teacher-reported sympathy.

Child report. In general, the findings for children's self-re-ported sympathy were consistent with those for teachers' re-ports; on at least some measures, self-reported sympathy wasassociated with positive and general emotionality, negativelycorrelated with negative emotionality, and positively related toregulation. Findings pertaining to emotionality generally weremore consistent for boys. Specifically, children's reported sym-pathy was associated with T3 teacher reports of positive emo-tionality and general El for boys, T1-T2 and T3 parental re-ports of low negative emotionality for boys, T3 parent-reportedhigh regulation (particularly for girls), and T1-T2 parental re-ports of attentional control (particularly for boys).

Also in accordance with findings for teacher-reported sympa-thy, boys' self-reported dispositional sympathy was associatedwith low levels of physiological arousal while watching the dis-tressing portion of the film (i.e., low mean HR and SC; see Table3).6 Furthermore, consistent with findings regarding the rela-tion of vagal tone to the children's social competence(Eisenberg et ah, 1995), vagal tone was positively correlatedwith boys' self-reported dispositional sympathy and negativelycorrelated with girls'.

Regressions for combined teacher- and child-report measures.It was assumed that information obtained from multiple re-

porters would be more reliable than that obtained from one re-porter (Epstein, 1979); thus, to reduce the number of regres-sion analyses, we standardized and averaged the scores forteacher- and child-report dispositional sympathy (the standard-ized teacher measure was used for the 8 children with no child-report score). Then we computed three separate regressionequations (each with the aforementioned composite variable asthe criterion variable), using the following sets of predictors: (a)the eight T3 teacher- and parent-report measures of regulation-emotionality; (b) the four T1-T2 teacher and mother measuresof negative emotionality-attentional regulation; and (c) HRand SC reactions to the distressing portion of the film.

In each regression, all results were entered simultaneously.The results are presented in Table 4. Because of the overlap invariance for many of the predictors, betas were not significantfor some variables that were significantly correlated with thecriterion variables. Of most interest is the overall amount ofvariance accounted for and which variables were the strongestpredictors. For the eight T3 teacher-parent variables, thechange in R2 was .47, p < .0001, multiple R = .69, with teacherreports of positive emotionality and parent reports of regulationbeing the strongest predictors (and teacher regulation predict-ing at p < .064). For the four T1-T2 teacher-mother predictors,the change in ^?2was.l7,p< .015, multiple,/? = .41, with sym-pathy being significantly predicted by high levels of parent-re-ported attentional control. All of the aforementioned regressionequations changed relatively little and were significant when sex(or age) was controlled in the first step.

The change in R2 for the two situational physiological vari-ables was .10, F(2, 68) = 3.58, p < .034, multiple R = .31,beta= -.23, p< . 057 for mean HR (beta = -.15, ns, forSC).However, perusal of Table 3 indicates that all the correlationalfindings for these predictors were for boys; thus, the regressionwas recomputed using only boys. The change in R2 for thisequation was .24, p < .03, multiple R = .49; with both SC andHR being negatively related to boys' sympathy at ps < .074 and.05. In summary, the teacher and parent variables at both T3and T1-T2 predicted a relatively high percentage of the vari-ance in children's dispositional sympathy, and physiologicalvariables were predictors of sympathy primarily for boys.

Interactions between regulation and emotionality. In addi-tional regression analyses, we examined whether level of regu-lation moderated the effects of general El on sympathy as hy-pothesized by Eisenberg and Fabes (1992). Separate analyseswere computed for the T3 parent and the teacher data (T1-T2data were not used because there was no measure of generalEl); furthermore, analyses were computed for both teacher andchild reports of sympathy. In each of the four regressionequations, the main effects for general El and the regulationcomposite were entered on the first step; the interaction between

5 Facial distress and concerned attention during the distress portionof the film also were reliably scored using the criteria from Eisenbergand Fabes (1995). Changes in facial distress from the baseline to thedistress segment were unrelated to dispositional sympathy; boys' facialconcerned attention was positively related to teacher-reported disposi-tional sympathy, r{ 38) = .35, p < .029.

6 Heart rate during the baseline film was negatively related to boys'reported sympathy, r( 37) = -.38, p < .017.

204 EISENBERG BT AL.

Table 3Correlations Between Teacher- and Child-Report Measures ofDispositional Sympathy and Indexes ofRegulat ion and Emotionality

Measure of emotionality/regulation

T3 teacher measuresNegative emotionalityPositive emotionalityGeneral emotional intensityRegulation

T3 parent measuresUnregulated negative emotionality3

Positive emotionalityGeneral emotional intensityRegulation

T1-T2 teacher measuresNegative emotionalityb

Attentional controlT1-T2 mother measures

Negative emotionalityAttentional control

Vagal tonec

Reactions to film distress segmentMean heart rate*Skin conductance

All

-.30**.52***.27*.45***

-.15-.01-.18

.39***

-.16.17

-.24*.30*.05

-.11-.24*

Teacher report

Girls

-.09,64***.45**.23

.00

.05-.06

.38*

.27- .17

-.28.23.11

-.03-.18

Sympathy measure

Boys

-.38**Alm*.17.49***

- .17-.11- .33*

.33*

- .31*.28

-.19.43**.05

-.14-.32*

AH

.07

.32**

.14

.17

-.10.00

-.10.29*

-.10.14

-.25*.30*.12

-.33**-.11

Child report

Girls

-.01.13

-.13.23

.21

.08-.07

.53***

-.04-.09

-.12.19

-.34*

.10

.13

Boys

.13

.42**

.33*

.09

-.34*.07

-.14.12

-.10.24

-.34*.42*,40**

-.51***-.33*

Note. Tl -Trnie i ;T2 = Time2;T3"There was a significant sex difference in the correlations for self-reported sympathy, p < .05. 'There was a significant sex difference in thecorrelations for teacher-reported sympathy, p < .05. There was a significant sex difference in the correlations for self-reported sympathy, p < .01.*p<M. **/><.01. ***/><.O0L

the two was entered on the second step. The interaction termwas significant only for prediction of teacher-reported sympa-thy from teacher reports of general El and regulation. On thesecond step, R2 change = .04, F( 1, 77) = 4.75, p < .033. Aftercentering the variables, we plotted the interaction using the pro-cedures outlined by Aiken and West (1991). As can be seen inFigure 1, unregulated children were low in sympathy, regardlessof their level of general El. In contrast, for moderately andhighly regulated children, level of sympathy increased withlevel of general El. The slopes for low, moderate, and high regu-lation were .16, .29, and .43, ps < .001 for the latter two slopes.7

The Relations of Measures ofDispositional Sympathy toSocial Functioning

To examine the hypothesis that markers of dispositional sym-pathy would be positively related to children's social function-ing, we correlated teacher and child reports of sympathy withour eight indexes of social functioning (see Table 5). All sig-nificant correlations were in the predicted direction. Teacherreports of children's sympathy were positively related to T3teacher reports of nonaggressive-socially appropriate behaviorand T1-T2 teacher-reported social skills, particularly for boys;T3 prosocial-sociaily competent interactions; and friendlyrather than hostile puppet behaviors by the children at both Tl(for boys) and T3. Children's self-reported sympathy was posi-tively related to T1-T2 school reports of social skills, friendlypuppet behavior at Tl and T3 (primarily for boys at T3), T l -

T2 sociometric status (for boys), and low levels of maternal-reported problem behaviors for boys. Thus, both teacher andchild reports of children's sympathy tended to be associatedwith high levels of social functioning, although many of the re-lations for child-reported sympathy held only for boys.8

Discussion

It was hypothesized that dispositional sympathy would be as-sociated with high regulation and general emotional intensity,as well as socially competent functioning. In general, the datasupported these predictions. As would be expected from theEisenberg and Fabes (1992) model, the pattern of findings ismost consistent for measures of regulation. Teacher-reportedsympathy was positively related to T3 teacher and parent re-

7 The quadratic effects of general El on sympathy were not significant.8 Parent report on the one-item rating of how often children felt sym-

pathetic was related to teacher but not child reports of sympathy, r{ 79)= .29, p < .008 and r(7I) = .13, ns. It also was correlated with T3teacher-reported regulation, socially appropriate behavior, prosocial-socially competent behavior, and low negative emotionality, r(78) =.34, r{~?9) - .26, r{79) = .20, and r<79) = - .21 , ps < .002, .018, .08,and .057, respectively; T3 parent reports of girls1 regulation, r(36) =.34, p< .04 (r = .04 for boys) and low maternal-reported problem be-havior f(78) = - .31 , p < .005; T1-T2 teacher-reported social skills,r(79) = .22,p < .05; and lowSC during the distress film, r{69) = -.27,

D1SPOSITIONAL EMPATHY-RELATED RESPONDING 205

Table 4Relations o/Tl~T2 Maternal Reports of Emotionality and Regulation to Children'sDispositional Sympathy (Combined Teacher and Child Reports)

Measure of emotion/regulation

Children's dispositional sympathy

R2change 0 7xro-order r

Regression I: T3 reportsTeacher positive emotionalityTeacher negative

emotionalityTeacher general emotional

intensityTeacher regulationParent positive emotionalityParent negative emotionalityParent general emotional

intensityParent regulation

F for stepMultiple R

Regression 2: T1-T2 motherand teacher reports

Parent negative emotionalityParent attentional controlTeacher negative

emotionalityTeacher attentional control

FMultiple RRegression 3: T3 physiological

measures8

Heart rateSkin conductance

F for stepMultiple R

.4?

.17

,24

58***

03

0723U10

0228**

.50*"

-.16

.26*

.41 ***-'.02

.15

-.16.42***

.69

.07

66) - 3.38*.41

-29

.49

-.28.33

J8

-~ 27— ifi

.JO

Note. Tl = Time 1, T2 = Time 2, T3 = Time 3.* Only boys are included in this analysis; see text for larger analysis.•j><.05. **/><,01. ***/7<.001. ****/><,0001.

ports of regulation and T1-T2 reports of boys' attentional con-trol. There were fewer findings for the relation of child-reportedsympathy to regulation, but all significant findings were consis-tent with expectations. Furthermore, consistent with the Eisen-berg and Fabes (1992) heuristic model, there was some evidencethat individual differences in regulation moderated the effect ofindividual differences in general emotional intensity. Accordingto T3 teacher reports, at low levels of regulation, childrentended to be low in sympathy regardless of their level of generalemotional intensity. However, consistent with expectations(Eisenberg & Fabes, 1992), children higher in general emo-tional intensity were high in sympathy primarily if they werewell regulated. Thus, children who were regulated were rela-tively sympathetic, a finding consistent with the notion that theability to regulate one's emotional arousal and behavior is asso-ciated with an other-, rather than self-, focus. Furthermore, thefact that individual differences in attentional regulation in pre-school and kindergarten predicted sympathy 2 years later sug-gests that temperamental aspects of emotion regulation at a rel-atively young age predict dispositional sympathy over a periodof years {also see Rothbart et al., 1994).

The pattern of findings for the measures of positive emotion-ality, negative emotionality, and general emotional intensityvaried in ways that usually were consistent with Eisenberg andFabes's (1992) theorizing. Sympathy was expected to be mod-estly related to general emotional intensity, particularly if com-bined with regulation, because overarousal and a self-focuswere not expected for children who could regulate their emo-tional arousal. As hypothesized, T3 teacher reports of generalEl tended to be positively associated with children's disposi-tional sympathy, particularly if the child was rated by theteacher as well regulated. In contrast, parental reports of generalEl were negatively related to boys' teacher-reported sympathy.It is not surprising that findings for teacher and parent reportsdiffered because their reports of general El were not signifi-cantly correlated. Perhaps parental reports of general emotionalintensity reflected negative emotionality rather than generalarousability. However, it also is possible that the one findingcounter to expectations for general El was due to chance. In anycase, the finding that teacher reports of general El were posi-tively related to children's sympathy and were moderated byindividual differences in regulation for teacher-reported sympa-

206 EISENBERG ET At.

>

ma.ECO

c0

O

.5

0

-.5

High Regulation

Mean Regulation

tow Regulation

-.33

-.62

-.44

-1SD Mean + 1SDGeneral Emotional Intensity

Figure J. Interaction of regulation with general emotional intensity: Prediction of teacher reports of chil-dren's sympathy.

thy is consistent with the hypothesis that people who are wellregulated and at least moderately emotionally intense are likelyto be sympathetic (Eisenberg & Fabes, 1992).

Relations between negative emotionality and children's sym-pathy, when significant, were negative. This is consistent withEisenberg and Fabes's {1992) prediction that negative emotion-ality (rather than general El) is associated with personal distressrather than sympathy. Furthermore, children who are prone tonegative emotionality, particularly distress, anger, and frustra-tion, might be expected to be self-focused rather than concernedwith others (Wood et al., 1990).

Notably, most of the relations between negative emotional-ity-EI and sympathy were for boys. Girls and boys may displaydifferent kinds of negative emotions (e.g., sadness or anxietymay be more frequent for girls, whereas anger is more frequentfor boys), resulting in different relations between negative emo-tionality and sympathy. In a study of temperamental negativeaffectivity, Rothbart et al. (1994) found that parental ratings ofsadness were related to children's empathy whereas ratings ofanger were linked to aggression.

It is interesting to note that adults' self-reported dispositionalnegative emotionality (particularly negative El and sadness)has been positively related to adults' sympathy (Eisenberg,Fabes, Murphy, Karbon, et al., 1994; Eisenberg & Okun, inpress). In contrast, adults1 reports of children's negative emo-tionality (including both negative El and frequency of negativeemotionality) often were negatively related to children's sym-

pathy. Perhaps adult reporters differentiate between frequencyand intensity of their own emotional responding, whereas adultsocializes are less likely to do so when rating children's emo-tionality. Furthermore, adults' self-reported negative El may re-flect relatively covert types of emotions such as sadness morethan do adults' reports of children's negative emotions (whichmay be based more on overt displays of anger and distress). Inresearch with adults, hostile and neurotic negative emotionstend to be positively associated with dispositional personal dis-tress but not sympathy (Davis, 1994).

Our results do not seem to reflect merely a tendency foradults to rate children low in social skills (including sympathy)as emotionally negative. In the present study, boys' sympathywas related to low HR and SC—markers of negative emotionalreactions and personal distress (see Eisenberg & Fabes, 1990)—while watching the distressing film segment. The physiologicalfindings for boys are consistent with the view that children whoare prone to negative emotionality, including personal distress,are relatively unlikely to experience sympathy. It is unclear whysimilar findings were not obtained for girls; perhaps it is becauseboys, more than girls, learn to express their negative emotionsinternally rather than externally (Buck, 1984).

Children's dispositional positive emotionality, which was as-sessed only contemporaneously, was positively related to chil-dren's dispositional sympathy, although only for teachers' andnot parents' reports of positive emotionality. This finding isconsistent with the assertion that both positive emotionality and


Table 5Correlations ofT3 Dispositional Sympathy With Measures of Social Functioning

Measure of dispositional sympathy

Measure of social functioning Total

_43*«*44***55***

-.22*.00.04.26*.30**

Teacher report

Girls

.16

.22

.44**

.09

.06-.02-.04

.27

Boys

47***.46**.62***

-.21.04.08.27.25

Total

.32**

.08

.09-.20

.02

.24*

.37**

.24*

Child report

Girls

.37*

.22-.02

.08

.35

.09

.24

.05

Boys

.28-.02

.15-,34*-.31

.36*

.42*

.29

T1-T2 social skills (teacher)T3 nonaggressive/socially appropriate behavior (teacher)T3 prosocial/socially competent behavior (teacher)T3 problem behavior (mother)T3 problem behavior (father)TI-T2 peer sodometric statusTI puppet behavior (child)T3 puppet behavior (child)

Note. Sample sizes for correlations with teacher-reported sympathy were 82 (38 girls, 44 boys) with the exception of mothers' and fathers' reportsof problem behavior (ns 76 and 63) and TI and T3 puppet behavior (/is = 63 and 72). Sample sizes for child-reported sympathy were 74 (34 girls, 40boys) except for mothers* and fathers' reports of problem behavior (/is = 78 and 56) and Tl and T3 puppet behavior (n& = 57 and 72). Tl - Time 1;T2 = Time 2; T3 = Time 3.*p<.os. **p<m. ***p<sm.

sympathy are more likely in well-regulated people (Eisenberg &Fabes, 1992) and with prior research with adults (Eisenberg,Fabes, Murphy, Karbon, et al., 1994). Furthermore, the associ-ation between sympathy and positive affect is consistent withtwo other findings in the literature: (a) Situational positiveaffect is associated with prosocial tendencies (Eisenberg & Mus-sen, 1989), and (b) people who are secure and happy may beless self-focused than other people and better able to respond toothers* emotion in a constructive manner (Staub, 1984).

One finding that was only partially consistent with the otherdata pertaining to regulation was that children's high vagaltone, viewed as an index of emotional regulation, was positivelyrelated to self-reported sympathy for boys but negatively relatedfor girls. Although the finding for girls is not consistent withprior research on vicarious emotional responding (Fabes et al.,1993) and theoretical expectations (Eisenberg & Fabes, 1992),it is congruent with other data obtained from this sample. Spe-cifically, in general, vagal tone was positively related to mea-sures of boys' social functioning and constructive coping andnegatively related to negative emotionality; findings tended tobe reversed for girls (particularly for teacher-report measures;Eisenberg et ah, 1995). One explanation for this pattern offindings is that uninhibited, assertive girls and boys are vieweddifferently by others, and they come to view themselves differ-ently as well. Vagal tone may be associated with internal regula-tion but not behavioral regulation. Indeed, high vagal tone andHR variability have been linked to uninhibited rather than shybehavior (Reznick, 1989); in addition, we found that pre-schoolers with high vagal tone were more assertive in defendingtheir possessions and territory (unpublished data from Eisen-berg et al., 1990). Perhaps, because of gender stereotypes andresulting differential expectations for boys and girls, boys* un-inhibited and assertive behavior is viewed more positively thanis that of girls. Inhibited, shy behavior has been associated withpositive social interactions and outcomes for girls but not forboys (Caspi, Bern, & Elder, 1989; Stevenson-Hinde, 1989). Fur-thermore, Buck (1975) found that girls, but not boys, whoclearly encoded spontaneous expressive reactions were viewed

by teachers as impulsive, dominating, and difficult to get alongwith. Thus, it is possible that relatively inhibited* low vagal tonegirls, in comparison with uninhibited high vagal tone girls, viewthemselves as more sympathetic because of the higher overallquality of their social interactions with others. However, itshould be noted that the children in this sample probably wererelatively well adjusted on the average, and the pattern of find-ings could differ for more diverse samples.

Consistent with expectations, dispositional sympathy was, ingeneral, positively correlated with positive social functioning,particularly for boys. This association supports the view thatregulation is a determinant of both sympathetic emotion andsocially acceptable behavior (Eisenberg & Fabes, 1992). Asnoted previously; difficulties in regulating emotion and emo-tionally driven behavior (e.g., reactive aggression) are the hall-marks of numerous types of behavioral disorders (e.g., Ameri-can Psychiatric Association, 1994), whereas lack of concern forothers is an emotional response characteristic of some disor-ders. Emotion regulation often is viewed as influencing otheraspects of functioning such as social interaction (Campos,Mumme, Kermotan, & Campos, 1994), in part by affectingbehavioral regulation in social contexts (e.g., the performanceof disruptive and antisocial behavior). Thus, it is not surprisingthat the dispositional tendency to experience a regulated emo-tional response such as sympathy is associated with socially ap-propriate, nonaggressive, and nondisruptive behavior. Further-more, by definition, people who experience sympathy would beexpected to be concerned about others and, consequently, tobehave benignly and sensitively toward them (Batson, 1991;Eisenberg & Fabes, 1990).

The stronger pattern of association between sympathy andsocial competence for boys' teacher-reported sympathy may bedue to the tendency for teachers to view girls as more sympa-thetic and prosocial, even if they are not. In the present study,girls were rated as higher in sympathy by their teachers thanwere boys (variances did not differ). However, girls* and boys'self-reported sympathy did not differ in regard to mean valueor variability. Perhaps, because of the stereotypic association of


sympathy and empathy with femininity, boys who view them-selves as sympathetic truly do differ from other boys in regardto their prosocial tendencies, whereas girls* perceptions of theirsympathetic tendencies vary partially as a function of their self-perceived femininity. Regardless, there were some positive asso-ciations between sympathy and positive social functioning forgirls as well as boys.

In summary, the findings in this study are consistent with theconclusion that individual differences in children's sympatheticbehavior are linked to aspects of their functioning that reflectenduring (e.g., temperamental or personality) qualities, partic-ularly high regulation, general emotional intensity, and positiverather than negative emotionality. Furthermore, consistent withthe notion that sympathy is associated with optimal regulation,sympathetic children were higher in social competence, broadlydenned. These findings bolster the claim that individual differ-ences in emotionality and regulation play a significant role insocial behavior, including prosocial tendencies.

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Received July 6, 1994Revision received February 10,1995

Accepted February 26, 1995 •

the relations of children's dispositional empathy-related responding to their emotionality,...

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