how humans develop empathy

How Humans Develop Empathy
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According to Cozzolino (2006), empathy is the hypothesis one makes about another person based on a combination of emotional, visceral, and cognitive information in an attempt to experience the other’s inner life while retaining objectivity. It entails the aspects of nonviolence, cultural, political and economic values. When cultivated, empathy motivates the healthier interpersonal, societal and personal living. At the age of 2-5 years, the child is very observant, and that is how they easily learn. If they are trained to assume empathy, care, and nonviolence, they easily replicate the same.
Infants are considered not fully capable of differentiating the self from others. They only have preliminary emotion control capabilities. Therefore, it is the duty of the caregiver, parent and any other adult to foster positive behaviors and attitude so that they can imitate what is ethically right. Empathy is a significant indicator of self-control and ability to manage one’s emotions. Apart from showing positive character towards their children, parents should be very observant their behavior changes. These are the primary indicators that the child is either distressed or empathetic. Infants tend to react to others’ depressing emotions and may adopt behaviors such as self-comfort to fight their stress (Knafo et al. 2008). This comes along with the enhancement of the self-other differentiation, accommodation of different emotions, and its regulation mainly in the second year of age.

Four factors determine the ability of a child to show empathy. These are the socio, relationships, behaviors towards others and genetic factors. Mainly the within-child factors are natural and cannot be changed but controlled. However, all the others are assumed and can easily be controlled. Aspects of pro-social behaviors, quality of relationship and rules are all imitated or else developed. They rest on the parental control.
References
Cozzolino, L. (2006), The neuroscience of human relationships: Attachment and the developing social brain. New York & London: W.W. Norton & Company.
Knafo, A., Zahn-Waxler, C., Van Hulle, C., Robinson, J., & Rhee, S. (2008). The developmental origins of a disposition toward empathy: Genetic and environmental contributions. Emotion, 8(6), 737-752. http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1037/a0014179