
Thus, they confuse the pain they perceive in others as their own, just as if it was happening to them. Here, a child still doesn’t perceive others as distinct from themselves. This happens during the first year of a person’s life. Stages of the development of empathy in childhoodĪccording to Hoffman, the development of empathy from early childhood consists of four stages: The first stage (global) According to Hoffman, there must be parallelism of feelings and affections with thoughts, moral principles, and behavioral tendencies. Thus, the link between empathy and altruism isn’t simple.Ī mature level of empathy allows a person to be more influenced by the vital conditions of others rather than by an immediate situation. They die shortly after stinging a target because they sacrifice themselves to protect their community. This is the case with social insects such as bees. Some species that lack empathy exhibit such behaviors. In fact, evolutionary biology tells us that altruistic behavior originated before we acquired this potential. There’s one idea that stands out: our socialization isn’t the result of empathy, at least not originally. The development of empathy in childhood yields revels very interesting facts about some evolutionary aspects of our species. This definition is the foundation of neuroscience, developmental psychology, and social psychology. David Hume, in his treatise on human nature, and Adam Smith described it as a natural means of communication. The origin of the concept “empathy” derives from what the Scottish Enlightenment called “sympathy”. Before explaining the development of empathy in childhood, let’s talk about the term per se.
