Socioeconomic Status and Media Exposure as Factors in Empathic Development.

<p>The current study examined the empathic attainment of young children (mean age 7 years) as a function of the child's socioeconomic status. Further, the potential intervening variable of violent media representations within product advertisements is assessed within and between the observed socioeconomic status groups. Three critical dimensions of empathy were assessed: cognitive, affective and behavioral. Participants were 200 volunteers recruited from public and private schools in a small region in southern Appalachia. Respondents were rated on their response to animated video clips depicting an individual in emotional distress. Results suggest that media exposure has significant effect on measures of affective empathy and prosocial behavior with lower scores being obtained by children after viewing an action oriented commercial as opposed to a prosocial commercial message prior to the presentation of the target vignette. The degree to which the media presentation affected empathic responding was found to be associated with participants' socioeconomic status.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

MA (Master of Arts)

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis - unrestricted

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology

Year dc:date.issued

2001

Author dc:creator

• Cox, David E.

• empathy
• child development
• school violence
• aggression
• Psychology
• Social and Behavioral Sciences

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright by the authors.

Repository record dc:identifier

https://dc.etsu.edu/etd/139

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dc.etsu.edu:etd-1189