Personal Distress - Development

Development

A study was conducted with a group of children as well as a separate group of adults; both groups were to watch a video. The video was of a negatively emotional news story. While they watched the video their facial expressions where recorded, as well they self reported how they felt after viewing the video. The results found that there is indeed a stark difference between sympathy and personal distress. Markers of sympathy were related to prosocial responses on the other hand facial indexes of personal distress were unrelated. For adults it was found that facial sadness and concerned attention tended to be positively related to prosocial tendencies, children on the other hand had a negative relationship between prosocial behaviour and facial personal distress. This displays how there is not only an observable difference between sympathy and personal distress. It can also be seen that there is a difference between how children and adults experience either personal distress or sympathy this is largely related to the level of development that the individual has achieved.

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