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DOI: 10.1177/1754073911421393 2012 4: 53Emotion Review

Doris Bischof-KhlerResponse to Commentaries of Krtner and Keller and Klann-Delius

Author reply: Empathy and Self-Recognition in Phylogenetic and Ontogenetic Perspective: Author

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Emotion ReviewVol. 4, No. 1 (January 2012) 53 54

The Author(s) 2012ISSN 1754-0739DOI: 10.1177/1754073911421393er.sagepub.com

Abstract

Selfother distinction, as documented by mirror self-recognition (MSR), allows for empathy which offers a motivational base for helping a person in need. Krtner and Keller propose a different, culture-related, possibility of helping based on shared intentional relations and emotional contagion which could explain helping behavior in Indian children not yet capable of MSR. Due to the experimental setting, however, other releasers of childrens sadness and helping behavior have to be considered. An alternative setting is proposed. With respect to MSR, the question of false negatives is discussed. The issues mentioned by Klann-Delius address fundamental theoretical questions that cannot be answered briefly.

Keywordsempathy, prosocial behavior, self-recognition, selfother distinction, synchronic identification

Krtner and Keller (2012) advance an interesting culture- specific pathway to prosocial behavior in Indian children who demonstrated helping behavior even though they were not yet capable of mirror self-recognition. Consequently, their helping cannot yet be considered to be empathic concern because empathy presupposes selfother distinction as indicated in mirror self-recognition. Krtner and Keller reference a theoretical approach by Barresi and Moore (1996) which postulates three developmental stages of understanding inten-tionality: Although children in their first year are not yet able to attribute mental states to others, they do demonstrate a sensitivity for intentional actions. By observing the external realization of intentions in a persons overt activities and target orientation, children may become interested in the same target and join in the persons activity, thereby sharing their intentionwhich is considered a first understanding of intentions. The teddy bear experiment applied by Krtner and Keller (referred to in Krtner & Keller, 2012) fits these condi-tions well: Child and playmate are both centered on the teddy

bear by manipulating it interactively. When the teddy bear breaks, the playmate stops and demonstrates sorrow, which is supposed to cause emotional contagion in the child. Consequently, the child is considered to integrate his own sor-row with the expressed behavior of the playmate and her teddy-bear-related behavior, and to thereby understand the situation, which then leads to helping.

Here a limitation of the teddy bear setting has to be consid-ered: The childs sorrow is not necessarily caused by emotional contagion. Children can become sad because an interesting acitivity has been interrupted or simply because the teddy bear is broken. When they subsequently offer it to the playmate, or to their mother, or try to repair it themselves, they could be doing so just because they want the play to go on. Therefore, it remains an open question whether their helping motivation can truly be called prosocial in the sense of being centered upon the other, particularly when children are not yet capable of selfother distinction. In order to rule out this ambiguity, we designed the spoon experiment which is better qualified to dis-tinguish self- from other-centered interventions because both participants are involved in separate activities to begin with. A replication of the Krtner and Keller study with a more unequiv-ocal design would be highly interesting.

A further question addresses the possibility of false nega-tives in mirror self-recognition. In order to identify the spot, the child has to realize that something is wrong with his appear-ance. To do so, he has to compare his mirror image with a human face schema, representing what people usually look like, that he has developed earlier and that allows him to rec-ognize himself as soon as he is capable of synchronic identifi-cation. Considering that grown ups often carry a bindi, would it not logically follow that the human face schema of many or most Indian children may include a dot? In this case, children would not see any problem with a spot on their faces and would just ignore it. Therefore, the usual mirror test might not be the most appropriate self-recognition test for use in India.

Empathy and Self-Recognition in Phylogenetic and Ontogenetic Perspective: Author Response to Commentaries of Krtner and Keller and Klann-Delius

Doris Bischof-KhlerDepartment of Psychology, Ludwig-Maximilian-University Munich, Germany

Corresponding author: Doris Bischof-Khler, Department of Psychology, Ludwig-Maximilian-University Munich, Leopoldstr. 13, D-80806 Munich, Germany. Email: doris@bischof.com

421393 EMR

Author Reply

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54 Emotion Review Vol. 4 No. 1

Krtner, Keller, and Chaudhary (2010) consider emotional contagion the only possible releaser of empathy. A second possi-bility outlined in my paper is synchronic identification. It allows for empathy in situations in which the input conveyed by the emotional expression is either weak or lacking entirely. By iden-tification an (at first uninvolved) observer comes to emotionally experience the situation of another person as if it were his own situation, and thereby understands the other persons mental state.

Klann-Delius gives a precise outline of my empathy explanation. However, I am a little concerned by her remark concerning the childs ability for (not yet conscious) mental imagination (2012, p. 51). What could mental imagination mean if it is not conscious? This and other questions and objec-tions in her commentary lead me to believe there is a significant misunderstanding at hand. Why is an emotion transfer con-sidered necessary in the case of identification, and what rea-sons are there to think that the child has to inhibit his own affective state in order to empathize? I do not consider either of them to be necessary, and to answer further questions, would imply a thorough reexamination of fundamental conceptualiza-tions, in particular with respect to explaining emotions. This would include such questions as how and why emotions evolved, how they develop in ontogenesis, how they are experienced phenomenologically, how their intentional component serves to initiate action and problem solving, and what role, if any, bodily feelings play in this context.

Because, at this point, our theoretical frameworks appear to be so discordant, clarification of the issue is not possible within

the length limitations of this text. Although it would be intrigu-ing to elaborate on all these topics, I will refrain from simply adding a few remarks that, due to their brevity, would scarcely suffice to clarify the issue. The same holds true with the rela-tionship of epigenetics to maturation and socialization as sug-gested by Klann-Delius (2012). It is an interesting idea, but again, the problem of disentangling the environmental effects that were formerly confounded in the notion of nurture, and now under the label of epigenetics, would go far beyond the scope of this response (for detailed information, see Bischof, 2009; Bischof-Khler, 2011).

ReferencesBarresi, J., & Moore, C. (1996). Intentional relations and social understand-

ing. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 19, 107154.Bischof, N. (2009). Psychologie. Ein Grundkurs fr Anspruchsvolle (2nd

ed.). Stuttgart, Germany: Kohlhammer.Bischof-Khler, D. (2011). Soziale Entwicklung in Kindheit und

Jugend. Bindung, Empathie, Theorie of Mind. Stuttgart, Germany: Kohlhammer.

Krtner, J., & Keller, H. (2012). Culture-specific developmental pathways to prosocial behavior: A comment on Bischof-Khlers universalist perspective. Emotion Review, 4, 4950.

Krtner, J., Keller, H., & Chaudhary, N. (2010). Cognitive and social influences on early prosocial behavior in two sociocultural contexts. Developmental Psychology, 46, 905914.

Klann-Delius, G. (2012). Empathy and self-recognition in phylogenetic and ontogenetic perspective: Commentary on Bischof-Khler. Emotion Review, 4, 5152.

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