A Research Review of Children’s Empathy

Empathy is the ability to understand and experience the inner world and emotional state of others.Useing reasonably empathy helps to stimulate young children’s prosocial behavior, restrain the aggressive behavior.It is of great importance to help children form correct values, establish good character and deal with good relationships.The existing research on children’s empathy is mainly from the following aspects:the overview of empathy, the influence factors of the children’s empathy and the impact on the social development of children.There is no unified theory on the concept of empathy, the purpose and angle of the study are different, so scholars have different definitions of the concept of empathy.The influence factors of children’s empathy mainly included six aspects:age and gender, cognitive ability, emotional emotion, interpersonal communication, parent-child relationship, education training.The influence of empathy on the social development of children is mainly reflected in four aspects:promoting pro-social behavior, inhibiting aggressive behavior, influencing children’s moral development, and improving their emotional regulation ability.By combing the research literature, we hope that the public can have a deep understanding of the children’s empathy, and provide theoretical basis and practical guidance for the cultivation of children’s empathy ability.However, the existing research still has the following shortcomings:first, the influence of age on empathy is controversial and should continue to be studied in the future.Second, the specific relationship between the children’s empathy and their pro-social behavior should be further explored;Third, there are few literatures related to the research on the mechanism of infant empathy, and further research is needed in the future.