Do babies feel empathy? Studies suggest that they do.

Do babies know when you’re sad? Do they feel concern for others? Do babies feel empathy? You might have heard that empathy doesn’t develop until the preschool years. But that’s actually a terrible misrepresentation of the evidence. Scientists recognize two kinds of empathy — affective empathy and cognitive empathy — and studies strongly suggest that babies experience both.

baby face, closeup, looking up with wonder and empathy at mother

First, take affective empathy. This is what happens when become aware of my feelings, and this triggers similar feelings emotions in you.

If you see that I’m joyful, it makes you feel joyful. If you notice that I’m scared, it puts you on edge. If you see me twist my ankle, you wince. My feelings rub off on you, and it often happens automatically. You don’t have to think about it, or deliberately try to match your emotions to mine.

Do babies lack this kind of empathy? Is it something that requires years of learning before we see any signs of it? There is compelling evidence to suggest otherwise.

Babies experience “contagious crying” within the first few days after birth.

Newborns become distressed when they hear other babies cry, and it isn’t simply a response to noise (Martin and Clark 1982; Sagi and Hoffman 1976; Simner 1971). Researchers have performed experiments where they presented babies with both (1) audio recordings of infant cries, and (2) computer-synthesized “crying”, and the babies could tell the difference. Newborns cried more when they heard the wailing of a real infant.

Such “contagious crying” continues as babies get older, but what does it mean? If babies aren’t merely crying, but also “catching” a mood, then they are, at minimum, experiencing something called “emotional contagion” – sharing emotions without necessarily understanding why.

And if babies also perceive the cause of their mood change? If they understand that their emotional state is a response to distress of another infant? Then they meet the criteria for full-blown, affective empathy (Decety and Svetlova 2012).

Babies watch faces, and begin learning about facial expressions early in life.

To sense the feelings of others, babies need to notice emotional cues, and learn to associate these cues with the correct affective state. How early does this begin?

Using brain imaging technology (near‐infrared spectroscopy, or “NIRS”), researchers have shown that the newborn brain responds differently to different emotional tones of voice (Zhang et al 2019). Newborns may also notice the difference between smiling and frowning faces (e.g., Faroni et al 2007); and experimental studies indicate that babies continue to develop their discriminatory abilities as the months roll by (Grossman 2010).

So it’s clear that young infants are paying attention to emotional cues. In addition, there is evidence that babies are busy learning how to interpret the social and emotional significance of these cues.

For example, across cultures, babies begin to return our social smiles by six weeks postpartum (Wörmann et al 2012). In addition, by 3-4 months, they react in distinctive ways if their caregivers suddenly adopt a wooden, unresponsive facial expression: Babies experience a decrease in positive affect, and /or an increase in negative affect (Wefers et al 2023; Broesch et al 2022; Nagy et al 2017).

Furthermore, between 4 and 7 months postpartum, babies show the ability to detect shifts in a stranger’s mood — from positive to negative, and vice versa (Flom and Bahrick 2007; Bahrick et al 2019). And studies suggest that young babies are developing expectations that certain facial expressions and vocal expressions “go together” (e.g., Xiao et al 2019; Palama et al 2018). For instance, in one experiment, 5-month-old babies were exposed to both infant facial expressions and infant vocalizations. The babies tended to associate happy infant faces with positive vocal expressions, and negative (angry or frustrated) faces with negative vocal expressions Vallant-Molina 2013).

Babies can also mirror the physiological responses that accompany our emotions

baby with dilated pupils and intense expression - showing emotional contagion

Whether we’re feeling delighted, angry, or frightened, our emotions have a physiological component, and the results are often visible in our eyes: Our pupils dilate when we are in high-arousal emotional states. Do others notice? Yes, even if they aren’t conscious of it. When people look at an individual with dilated pupils, their own pupils tend to dilate in response.

What about babies? In experiments, infants as young as 4- and 5- months experience this “pupillary contagion effect,” which suggests babies are feeling the resonance of another person’s excitement (Fawcett et al 2017; Tsuji et al 2022). And, as I explain elsewhere, there is evidence that babies can mirror our cardiovascular responses when they observe us under emotional stress. Read more about that here.

So when, exactly, do babies show clear signs of affective empathy?

That’s going to be hard to pinpoint, because of the way researchers define “affective empathy.”

As noted above, it’s not enough to experience emotional contagion. An infant must also be aware of the source of the contagion – realize that the emotions originate with another individual. Maybe this comes naturally to babies from a young age. Or maybe it doesn’t. Perhaps they simply feel sad, irritated, or happy, and don’t understand that their feelings were triggered by someone else’s feelings.

If babies could talk, we could simply ask them (“How does that other guy feel?”), but this isn’t an option. What can we do instead?

One possibility is to look for early signs that a baby is concerned for an individual in distress. Leaning forward. Watching with a downturned mouth and furrowed brow. Vocalizing with a sad or sympathetic tone. When researchers have conducted experiments on babies — presenting them with an adult crying and pretending to feel pain — babies have reacted with these behaviors. The level of concern is modest, but evident in children before they are 12 months old. In fact, there are hints that some babies might show signs as early as 3 months (Roth-Hanania et al 2011; Davidov et al 2021).

Moreover, experiments indicate that babies show may show higher levels of concern when the distressed individual is another infant, rather than an adult (Liddle et al 2015; Roth-Hanania et al 2011).

Putting it all together, then, babies appear to experience the core feature of affective empathy (emotional contagion) very early, and, during their first year, they develop their abilities to identify and interpret emotional cues. Along the way, they may also show evidence of concern for individuals in distress, which suggests they eventually meet the criteria for full-blown, affective empathy: They don’t just “catch” another person’s mood, they also understand that this mood originated with him or her.

What about cognitive empathy?

As we’ve noted, affective empathy involves the direct sharing of emotions. You see a terrified person, and feel a resonance of his or her fear. It’s probably what most people think of when they talk about empathy. But there is another form of empathy to consider: Cognitive empathy.

We engage in cognitive empathy when we try figure out why someone is terrified, and this requires perspective-taking and deliberate, effortful thought. It’s more of a cerebral, Sherlock Holmes sort of exercise. And our success depends heavily on prior knowledge, experience, and emotional self-control.

The knowledge and experience part are pretty obvious. If a frightened man is clutching his chest and wincing in pain, you might guess that he’s feeling symptoms of a heart attack, or reacting to a sudden injury. But what if you had no medical knowledge, and no experience with anyone acting like this before?

The display of emotion might trigger affective empathy in you. But your ability to show cognitive empathy would be very limited. You’d have a hard time understanding the situation, and you probably wouldn’t know what sort of help to offer.

So background information is crucial for showing cognitive empathy, and babies are clearly at a disadvantage. They have a very limited experience with the world. They aren’t aware of all the things that can trigger emotions in others.

What about emotional self-control? The connection with empathy might be less obvious, but it too is crucial, especially if you are someone who experiences lots of affective empathy. The reason? Emotional contagion can prompt you to focus on your own feelings, instead of the feelings of the other person.

Let’s go back to the example of the frightened man having a heart attack. Being around him is disturbing. You may “catch” his feelings of panic and distress. To respond with cognitive empathy, you need to keep your focus on the man’s predicament, not your own. But that could be difficult if the situation is stressing you out. You might have the impulse to turn away.

It can happen with positive emotions, too. Another person’s happy excitement might be too much for you, prompting you to back off.

And if you’re a parent, you may have noticed similar reactions in your baby. In response to a social interaction, the baby tries to disengage — turning away, closing his or her eyes. The baby is overwhelmed, and attempts to disconnect from the source of stimulation.

So practicing cognitive empathy requires a certain amount of emotional self-regulation. You need to be able to separate yourself, emotionally, from whatever is going on. Not necessarily so much that you don’t feel emotional contagion any more. But enough that you can think clearly about the other person’s perspective and needs.

Do babies show signs of cognitive empathy? Yes!

Experiments suggest that many of the components of cognitive empathy are in place. For instance, babies as young as 6 months seem knowledgeable about victimization — and they show a bias for approaching individuals who have been victimized.

You can read more about it in this Parenting Science article.

But the takeaway here is that babies know something about the emotional consequences of social interactions. They seem to understand that victims feel distress when they are bullied. And, given a choice between someone who was well-treated and someone who was bullied, babies are more likely to approach the victim (Uzefovsky et al 2019).

There are also clear cases of older babies offering instrumental help.

For example, consider experiments conducted by Felix Warneken and Michael Tomasello. When 14-month-old babies observed an adult stranger trying — and failing — to pick up an object, most children responded by handing the object over. They did this without being asked or bribed. They noticed the struggle, worked out what the stranger wanted, and offered help (Warneken and Tomasello 2007).

Other research suggests that some babies will try to help other infants. In one experiment, researchers swaddled a realistic-looking baby doll, concealing most of the doll’s face, so that viewers wouldn’t be tell it was merely a doll, and not a live infant. Next, the researchers fitted the doll with an audio device. It played back recordings of a baby crying (Nichols et al 2009).

The researchers left babies — between the ages of 12 and 24 months — alone with the crying doll. What happened next? Most babies registered concern in their faces, and some approached the swaddled figure and attempted to offer comfort. They tried to give the “infant” a toy.

Once again, this behavior appeared without any prompting or bribery. Babies observed what they believed to be a distressed infant, and they responded in ways that suggest cognitive empathy. They probably knew from experience that a toy can improve an infant’s mood. It appears they engaged in perspective-taking, and came up with an appropriate remedy.

Babies even seem to know how other people feel about their friends.

In a recent experiment, researchers showed 11-month-old infants a series of animated video clips — short vignettes depicting two friendly characters interacting on screen. When babies watched one of the friends achieve a goal (jump over a hurdle), the infants expected the other friend to look happy about it. By contrast, the babies didn’t expect the character to look happy after a different character (an antagonist) achieved the same goal (Smith-Torres et al 2023).

What about Theory of Mind?

You might have heard that Theory of Mind — the ability to attribute mental states to others — is lacking in babies. And that would seem to be a problem for cognitive empathy. It’s hard to figure out what someone needs if you have no insight into his or her beliefs, desires, and thoughts!

But — as the previous study indicates — babies aren’t totally clueless when it comes to Theory of Mind.

By the age of 5 months, most babies can infer another person’s goals — like an intention to grab an object (Robson and Kuhlmeier 2016). So babies may be prepared to understand the emotional consequences of having one’s goals thwarted.

And while the precise timing is controversial, experiments suggest that many babies will have begun to show more sophisticated abilities by the age of two. They may grasp, for instance, that other people can believe things that are false (Burnside et al 2019). Or they may realize that not everyone loves the same foods. They understand that you might want to eat broccoli — even if they themselves dislike it.

There’s much more to learn about other people’s minds, and babies aren’t as knowledgeable as older people. But babies know some things — enough to be able to empathize in a variety of situations.

So where does empathy come from? What makes babies empathic?

We’ve already noted that cognitive empathy depends on your experiences and knowledge. It depends on motivation too.

Are you able to understand another person’s predicament? Do you want to help? Do you think this individual is deserving of your help?

Cognitive empathy doesn’t just emerge. A willingness to help doesn’t just emerge. To an important degree, it is learned. Biological psychologist Cecilia Heyes thinks the same is true for affective empathy, and I think her ideas make a lot of sense.

She proposes that babies learn affective empathy by association. If a baby is feeling happy — and his mother responds by smiling and making joyful sounds — the baby will learn to associate his own feelings of happiness with the mother’s social signals. Thereafter, the brain will link smiles and giggles with an inner feeling of cheer.

In the same way, babies can quickly learn to “wire together” other feelings and social signals. When a baby feels fear, and simultaneously observes signs of fear in another person, the brain forges a link between these signs and the emotion. When a baby feels sad, and hears someone wailing, the baby learns to associate sadness with the sound of crying.

It’s a very plausible hypothesis, and one that should give us pause. If Heyes is right, then caregivers play a crucial role in the development of affective empathy. We nurture empathy by tuning into an infant’s moods, and mirroring these feelings — displaying sympathetic facial expressions, sounds, and gestures.

So empathy isn’t something that just happens. As Cecilia Heyes warns, “we cannot take it for granted that empathy will spring up with each new generation, regardless of the social environment and child rearing practices to which each new generation is exposed.”

Parents matter. Peers matter. Social norms and ideologies matter.

To promote empathy, we need to be emotionally responsive to our infants. We need to act as role models for treating others with sensitivity and kindness. We need to teach children to expand — not restrict — the circle of individuals that they empathize with. We need to show children how to be reflective and thoughtful. To be consciously, deliberately humane.

So yes, babies feel empathy. Yes, they begin life prepared to show kindness and concern toward people in trouble. But we can screw that up. We must step up to the task.

References: Do babies feel empathy?

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image of baby gazing with wonder and empathy at mother by istock /monkeybusinessimages

closeup of baby’s eyes with dilated pupils by Fedinchik / istock

Content of “Do babies feel empathy” last modified 6/2023

Portions of the text derive from earlier versions of this article, written by the same author.