New2view's Blog   Life on The Blue Marble

Not often, but occasionally I see an article that I believe is worth sharing with those who may have similar likes as me.  The following is reproduced from a Nice News (nicenews.com) subscription for non-commercial information purposes. Imho empathy is as essential to human life as the air we breath and hope you will find it as positive as I do…

Babies Begin Developing Empathy Around 18 Months, Study Says

​Past research has shown that the human brain is hardwired for empathy and forming relationships, but at what point in our development do those characteristics emerge? A new study, published in the spring edition of the journal Cognitive Development, says it’s earlier than you may think — at about 18 months of age.
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Around the same time that babies are learning words beyond “mama” and “dada,” walking on their own, and starting to feed themselves, they’re also developing the first inklings of “empathic concern,” the scientists say. They reached this conclusion by analyzing 127 mother-child pairs, bringing them in for behavioral experiments when the children were 6, 10, 14, and 18 months old, per a press release from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.
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The researchers tracked the children’s response to another person’s “simulated pain,” finding that their concern in reaction to the strangers’ “distress” was most pronounced by the 18 month point. They also discovered that a mother’s emotional intelligence affects the child’s.
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“The more sensitively mothers responded to the needs of their infants, the greater the capacity of the children was in their second year of life to show empathic concern for a stranger,”  the release reads, with study author Markus Paulus adding, “Children learn from [caregivers] how to deal with negative emotions. As a result, they are subsequently able to apply these lessons themselves.” (italics added)

Please Note the comment: ‘Children learn from caregivers!’