Playfulness in Chinese preschoolers: the role of self- and other-oriented empathy and gender

ABSTRACT

The self-oriented and other-oriented empathy dimensions may have different relationships with playfulness. However, a scarcity of research exists on the association between empathy and playfulness. The present research contained two studies. Parents of 386 preschoolers (M_age = 4.89, SD_age = 0.79) attended Study 1, and teachers of 369 preschoolers (M_age = 4.16, SD_age = 0.83) attended Study 2. The parents and teachers completed the Chinese versions of the Children's Playfulness Scale (CPS-C) and the Chinese Empathy Questionnaire (EmQue-C). The results of these two studies revealed the pattern of associations between empathy and playfulness: while the self-oriented empathy dimension (i.e. emotion contagion) negatively predicted preschoolers’ playfulness, the two other-oriented empathy dimensions (attention to others’ distress and prosocial behaviour) positively predicted playfulness. Moreover, gender moderated the association between empathy and playfulness. These findings enhanced our understanding of the social and emotional traits of playful children.

KEYWORDS:

• Playfulness
• empathy
• gender
• preschoolers

Acknowledgments

Grateful appreciation is extended to the children, parents, and administrators of the preschools that participated in this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Social Science Key Project of the Beijing Municipal Education Commission: [grant no SZ201810028017]. This research was also supported by the Beijing Municipal Social Science Project: [grant no. 17JYB031].

Notes on contributors

Heqing Huang

Heqing Huang contributed to the conception and design of the study, performed the data analyses, and wrote the manuscript.

Ya Zhu

Ya Zhu collected the data in this research and contributed to the manuscript preparation.

Jiyou Gu

Jiyou Gu also contributed to the conception of the study and manuscript preparation.

Xiaohui Xu

Xiaohui Xu critically revised the manuscript for important intellectual content and provided financial support.