Developing Empathy and Moral Sentiments in Preschool Children Through Drama
Abstract
Moral and prosocial behavior determines our relations with other people. Martin L. Hoffman’s concept of the link between empathy and the universal stages of moral development focuses on the development of empathy, guilt and moral internalisation. Hoffman claims that cognitive development is closely linked to the development of empathy and to the development of moral sentiments in particular. Semantic processing requires more skills than mimicry, association or conditioning. There are five stages in the parallel cognitive and empathy development in children: a newborn’s reactive cry, egocentric empathic distress, quasi-egocentric empathic distress, veridical emphatic distress and empathy for another’s experience beyond the immediate situation. Role-taking provides a substitute emotional experience by putting oneself in the other’s place. The role-taking ability is the social-cognitive process which indicates that a given person is able to enter into another’s thoughts, feelings and intentions. The activity is based on the observation of real life (culture) and the scenarios help understand sociocultural conventions. Drama in education offers an opportunity for children to understand and recognize the emotions and mental states of other people. The most valuable feature of drama is that it helps develop theory of mind and children can learn to narrate and dialogue. As a result, a game takes on a new significance.
References
Barden R.C., Zelko F.A., Duncan S.W., Masters J.C., Children’s Consensual Knowledge about the Experiential Determinant of Emotion, „Journal of Personality and Social Psychgology”, 39(1980)5.
Baron-Cohen S., Do people with autism understand what causes emotions?, „Child Development”, (1991)82.
Coulter J., Affect and social context: Emotion definition as a social task, [w:] The Social Construction of Emotions, red. R. Harre, Blackell, Oxford 1986.
Dziedzic A., Pichalska J., Świderska E., Drama na lekcjach języka polskiego, WSiP, Warszawa 1992.
Flavell J.H., The Development of Inference about Others, [w:] Understanding Other Persons, red. T. Mischel, Blackwell, Basil & Mott, Oxford 1974.
Garner P.W., Carlson-Jones D., Gaddy G., Rennie K.M., Low-Income Mothers’ Conversations About Emotions and their Children’s Emotional Competence, „Social Development”, (1997)6.
Goffman E., Człowiek w teatrze życia codziennego, PIW, Warszawa 1981.
Harris P.L., Olthoff T., Meerum Terwogt M., Hardman C.E., Children’s Knowledge about the Experiential Determinant of Emotion, „International Journal of Behavioral Development”, 10(1987)3.
Hoffman M.L., Empatia i rozwój moralny, tłum. O. Waśkiewicz, GWP, Gdańsk 2006.
Jabłoński S., Smykowski B., Osiągnięcia i zagrożenia dla rozwoju dziecka w wieku przedszkolnym, [w:] Dzieci i młodzież wobec agresji i przemocy, red. A. Brzezińska, E. Hornowska, Wydawnictwo Naukowe Scholar, Warszawa 2004/2007.
Jagiełło-Rusiłowski A., Drama w STOP-KLATCE w kierunku pozytywnej zmiany społecznej, Stowarzyszenie Praktyków Dramy Stop-Klatka, Warszawa 2010.
Królica M., Drama i happening w edukacji przedszkolnej, Impuls, Kraków 2009.
Lewis M., Wyłanianie się ludzkich emocji, [w:] Psychologia emocji, red. M. Lewis, J.M. Haviland-Jones, tłum. J. Piotrowski, GWP, Gdańsk 2005.
Nelson J., Gruendel K., At Morning it’s Lunchtime. A Scriptal View of Children’s Dialogues, „Discourse Processes”, (1979)2.
Pankowska K., Pedagogika dramy, Żak, Warszawa 2000.
Papalia D.E., Olds S.W., Child’s world, McGraw-Hill, New York 1986.
Piaget J., Studia z psychologii dziecka (wyd. 2), tłum. T. Kołakowska, PWN, Warszawa 2006.
Rime B., The Social Sharing of Emotions as a Source for The Social Knowledge of Emotion, [w:] Everyday Conceptions of Emotion, red. J.J. Russell, J.M. Fernandez-Dols, A.S.R. Manstead, J.C. Wellenkamp, Dordrecht 1995.
Rosenberg M., Reflexivity and Emotions, „Social Psychology”, (1990)53.
Shott S., Emotion and social life. A symbolic Interactionist Analysis, „American Journal of Sociology”, (1979)84.
Smykowski B., Wiek przedszkolny. Jak rozpoznać potencjał dziecka?, [w:] Psychologiczne portrety człowieka, red. A.I. Brzezińska, Praktyczna psychologia rozwojowa, GWP, Gdańsk 2006.
Stelle H., Steele M., Croft C., Fonagy P., Infant-Mother Attachment at One Year Predicts Children’s Understanding of Mixed Emotions At Six Years, „Social Development”, (1999)8.
Tan J., Harris P.L., Autistic Children Understand Seeing and Waiting, „Development and Psychopathology”, (1991)3.
Trabasso T., Stein N.L., Johnson L.R., Children’s Knowledge of Events: A Casual Analysis of Story Structure, [w:] Learning and Motivation, t. 15, red. G. Bower, „Academic Press”, New York 1981.
Wygotski L., Narzędzie i znak w rozwoju dziecka, tłum. B. Grell, PWN, Warszawa 1978.
Copyright (c) 2016 Elementary Education in Theory and Practice
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
- When submitting a text, the author declares that he/she is the Author of the article (hereinafter referred to as the “Work”) and:
- he/she owns the exclusive and unlimited copyright to the Work,
- is entitled to dispose of the copyright to the Work.
Declares that it does not infringe any third party copyrights or legal rights.
Declares that there is no conflict of interest.
2. At the same time, the Author grants the Ignatianum University in Cracowa royalty-free, non-exclusive and territorially unlimited licence to use the Work in the following fields of exploitation:
- recording the Work in a hard copy, as well as on a digital or magnetic medium;
- reproduction of the Work using any technique, without limitation of the number of editions or copies;
- distribution of the Work and its copies on any medium, including marketing, sale, lending, and rental;
- introduction of the Work into a computer memory;
- disseminating the Work in information networks, including in the Internet;
- public performance, exhibition, display, reproduction, broadcasting and re-broadcasting, as well as making the Work available to the public in such a way that everyone can have access to it at a time and place of their own choosing;
- within the scope of dependent rights to the Work, including in particular the right to make necessary changes to the Work resulting from editorial and methodical development, as well as to translate the Work into foreign languages;
The licence is granted from the moment of the transfer of the Work to the Ignatianum University in Cracow. The Ignatianum University in Cracow is entitled to grant further sub-licences to the Work within the scope of the right granted. The licence is time-limited and it is granted for a period of 15 years, starting from the date of its granting.
Authors are permitted and encouraged to publish their text online (e.g. in their institution’s repository or on the institution’s website) before or during the submission process as this may lead to beneficial exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of the published text (See The Effect of Open Access). We recommend using any of the following portals of research associations:
- ResearchGate
- SSRN
- Academia.edu
- Selected Works
- Academic Search
