A Study of Empathy in Young Greek and U.S. Children

Abstract

To gauge the effect that different attitudes and child-rearing practices may have on the development of empathy, the responses to the Feshbach and Roe Affective Situational Test for Empathy of 64 Athenian children were compared to those obtained earlier from 46 children in Los Angeles. Athenian girls were more empathic than Athenian boys, whereas no such difference was detected in the Los Angeles children. Children in both environments responded more empathically to stories depicting children whose sex was the same as the subject's sex. Also, the children in Los Angeles scored higher in empathy than the children in Athens. These differences are attributed to different patterns of discipline and sex-role expectations.

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