Youth who have a conduct disorder with callous-unemotional (CU) traits usually display behavior that makes it hard for them to get along with their peers. These traits include a lack of concern for other’s feelings and behavior that is uninhibited by fear. Researchers also suspect that youth with CU traits cannot recognize fear and sadness in other people. In adults, these same traits can be associated with psychopathic behavior.
Although these findings about empathy continue to be explored in academic research, the scholars in this 2019 study by Milone et. al, (1) which was published in the journal Neural Plasticity, wondered if they could find associations between maltreatment in childhood and behavior in adolescence. If so, they hoped to draw upon other research, which suggests that empathy can be developed when a caregiver increases eye-contact (paired with social-bonding hormone oxytocin). Similar research suggested that withholding eye contact can lead to a decrease in empathy.
But empathy is a complex emotion, with both cognitive and affective elements. (Emotional affect indicates how well a child can make inferences about another person’s emotional state, and emotional cognition indicates how well a child can recognize basic and complex emotions.) The researchers wanted to gain a better understanding of which elements might be most receptive to change. Like many other studies of childhood mental health, they concentrated on adolescents between 11 and 17 years old who met clinically established thresholds for conduct disorder—in this case, conduct disorder without a neurological basis.
In other words, the researchers could be assured that the CU traits were more likely the product of environment than of biology. In addition, the boys self-reported their own inclination to show concern for other’s problems (EC=Empathetic Concern), including the likelihood to take another person’s perspective (PT=perspective taking). After rating the boys for concern and perspective-taking, a standardized child’s eye test (CET) was administered to measure emotional affect and cognition. Finally, an additional scale was applied to rate the degree to which a child had been neglected, emotionally abused, or physically abused. Together, the tools provided a three-dimensional portrait of each adolescent: the presence of environmentally driven CU traits including maltreatment; the ability for empathetic concern and perspective taking; and the ability to make judgments about another person’s emotional state.
At the end of the study, the boys with higher levels of CU traits were reliably predicted to have lower levels of empathetic concern (affective empathy). As such, it is very difficult for them to feel compassion for someone else’s troubles. But the study was not able to draw similar conclusions about the relationship between the level of CU traits and the ability to recognize emotions or to determine that previous maltreatment has any influence. In fact, the author’s acknowledged that even if there were associations with maltreatment, it would still be hard to tell if they were inspired by the child’s difficult behavior.
In any event, their preliminary work suggests that if interventions (such developing empathy with eye contact) are successful, they may most apply to compassion, but not necessarily to recognition of fear or sorrow. While the study results cannot be transferred automatically to preschool children, it does provide some insight about what is in store for young children with high CU traits, and where researchers will look next to provide treatment.
- What do you make of these study results?
- What would you ask the researchers if you had the opportunity?
- Do you have any classroom management techniques or classroom curriculum ideas that seem related to these concepts?
- What would you hope scholars could observe about eye contact and empathy in your classroom?
#cognitive science #empathy #education
