Child Development

Mangelsdorf, Sarah C., J. R. Shapiro, and D. Marzolf. ‘‘Develop-
mental and Temperamental Differences in Emotion Regula-
tion in Infancy.’’ Child Development 66 (1995):1817–1828.
Strayer, Janet, and Nancy Eisenberg. ‘‘Empathy Viewed in Con-
text.’’ In Nancy Eisenberg and Janet Strayer eds., Empathy and
Its Development. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Zero to Three. What Parents Understand about Child Development.
Washington, DC: Zero to Three, 1997.
Richard A. Fabes
Cynthia A. Frosch
Amy Buchanan

EMPATHY

Empathy is the ability to share another’s emotional
experience. It is a prosocial behavior that underlies
altruism. Empathy, along with affection, gratitude,
sympathy, and compassion, are complex social emo-
tions that contribute to the moral behavior that ce-
ments society. Since empathy is an internal affective
reaction, it has been inferred through various behav-
iors including emotional expression, social referenc-
ing, helping behavior, and self-report.

M. L. Hoffman has proposed a developmental
theory of empathy that has at least four stages. In the
first stage, emotional contagion, an infant will cry
upon hearing the cries of another. At this stage, it is
not clear whether the infant can distinguish who is in
distress. The next stage emerges in the second year
when a toddler, who can differentiate between self
and other, will express egocentric empathy. Upon
hearing the cry of another, the toddler will provide
help that he himself would find comforting, such as
offering his own favorite toy. The third stage appears
in the third year as the child begins to take the per-
spective of another and can offer help that the other
might need. Finally, in middle childhood, the fourth
stage is achieved; the child realizes that he and others
are independent persons whose emotions may be tied
to their unique history of past events.

The development of empathy is influenced by
cognitive development, the increasing ability to dif-
ferentiate self and other and to take another’s per-
spective. Children who receive nurturing from
parents who model empathy and who explain the rea-
sons behind moral behavior are more likely to dem-
onstrate empathy.

See also: ALTRUISM; PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT

Bibliography
Eisenberg, Nancy, ed. Empathy and Related Emotional Responses. San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1989.
Hoffman, M. L. ‘‘Development of Moral Thought, Feeling, and Be-
havior.’’ American Psychologist 34 (1979):958–966.
Oatley, Keith, and Jennifer M. Jenkins. Understanding Emotions.
Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1996.

Sroufe, L. Alan, Robert G. Cooper, and Ganie B. De Hart. Child De-

velopment: Its Nature and Course. New York: McGraw-Hill,

1996.

Strayer, J., and Schroeder, M. ‘‘Children’s Helping Strategies: In-

fluences of Emotion, Empathy, and Age.’’ In Nancy Eisenberg

ed., Empathy and Related Emotional Responses. San Francisco:

Jossey-Bass, 1989.

Zahn-Waxler, Carolyn, Marian Radke-Yarrow, and R. King.

‘‘Child-Rearing and Children’s Prosocial Initiations toward

Victims of Distress.’’ Child Development 50 (1979):319–330.

Joanne Bitetti

Jane Brown-O’Gorman

EMPLOYMENT IN ADOLESCENCE

Youth employment is worthy of notice because the

number of young workers is increasing in both devel-

oped and developing countries. Youth employment

encompasses youths between the ages of fifteen and

twenty-four working part-time or full-time for money,

outside their family. Youths younger than fifteen

working for money are regarded as child laborers;

such labor is prohibited in many regions.

Youth laborers are, obviously, at the age of sec-

ondary schooling. Most of them take a part-time job

to earn some pocket money after school. Some of

them, mostly academic underachievers, discontinue

formal schooling and take up a full-time job. Accord-

ing to Catherine Loughlin and Julian Barling, half of

the youths between the ages of seventeen and nine-

teen in the United States have part-time or full-time

jobs. In addition, many senior secondary students

work around twenty hours a week, and about 10 per-

cent of senior secondary students work more than

thirty-five hours a week, just like full-time workers. Ju-

lian Barling and E. Kevin Kelloway found that 25 per-

cent of Canadian youths in the seventeen to nineteen

age group work more than twenty hours a week. Simi-

lar results were found for a developed city in Asia,

Hong Kong. The labor participation rate for Hong

Kong youths was 25 percent for those fifteen to nine-

teen and 78 percent for those nineteen to twenty-

four.

Young people who work go through a growing

process that is influenced by their working experi-

ences. The impacts of youth employment are quite

controversial.

Job Nature

Generally, job nature is an important subject of

youth employment. The most popular jobs for school-

age youths include private tutoring, baby-sitting, and

jobs that require few skills and offer low wages and lit-

tle opportunity for further career development.

EMPLOYMENT IN ADOLESCENCE 137