Effects Of Storytelling On Expressions Of Empathy Essays (194 words)

Effects Of Storytelling On Expressions Of Empathy The present study examined affective and cognitive empathy in preschool children. Seventeen children, ages three to five years, were given The Young Children's Empathy Measure to determine their understanding of empathy. Participants were then read a children's story and given the empathy measure again, to see if they expressed more empathy after hearing about a sympathetic protagonist. A second baseline score was obtained one week after the story was administered. On measures of cognitive anger, mean scores increased significantly after the story was heard. Other scores increased after hearing the story, indicating a trend that storytelling is an effective method of increasing expressions of empathy. Affective empathy is defined as being able to know about and understand another person's feelings without having experienced the same situation (Feshbach, 1975). Children as young as three years of age have been shown to exhibit appropriate empathy toward others and to demonstrate corre ct understanding of others' emotions (Gove Poresky, 1990). Although young children can correctly express empathy toward others, empathic abilities do appear to increase as one grows older and is able to view the world in a less egocentric manner (Piaget, 1966). Numer...