Person-Context Relations as Developmental Conditions for Empathy and Prosocial Action: A Cross-Cultural Analysis

Empathy and prosocial behavior constitute aspects of child-context relations. They are influenced by the environment of the developing child, and they influence the child's relation to his or her environment. The child's most intimate environment are the caretakers, whereas on a rnacrolevel the cultural environment and the sociopolitical system are operating. These environments are interconnected and affect the child-context relation, and thereby the child's development. This chapter is based on a larger study that entails investigations at several levels of complexity in person-context relations. The focus is on the macrocontextual influences that cultural environments may have on empathy and prosocial action in social interactions. In specific, within a frame of macrocultural comparisons, behavioral observations and self-reports are used for microanalyses of contextual influences on children's empathy and prosocial actions. Assume here that the child's prosocial action-an altruistic motivated person-context relation-occurs on the basis of certain emotions, especially on the basis of empathic feelings with other people. Traditionally, the understanding of the determinants of prosocial behavior is based on studies that have focused almost exclusively on adults. Consequently, cognitive aspects have been the center of attention, and little effort has been paid to examining emotional aspects. However, for young children, it appears questionable whether the study of empathy can rely solely on a cognitive framework. Thus, there are doubts as to whether the specific emotional qualities