Submitted:
30 December 2025
Posted:
01 January 2026
You are already at the latest version
Abstract
Background/Objectives: Prosocial behaviors such as helping, sharing, and comforting constitute a core aspect of human sociality and emerge early in development. Understanding how early empathic responses are organized is central to current debates on the developmental foundations of prosociality, particularly beyond Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) populations. This study examined the developmental organization of early empathic responses and the contributions of age, sex, and socioeconomic context to variability in early prosocial behavior. Methods: Thirty-six Colombian children aged 14 to 30 months from three socioeconomic contexts (very low, low, and middle–high), including children from indigenous Wayuu communities, were observed during a simulated distress situation derived from the Échelle de Communication Sociale Précoce (ECSP). Empathic responses were coded using the expanded hierarchical classification proposed by Molina and Bulgarelli and summarized through an ordinal empathy score reflecting the highest level of empathic organization observed. Quantitative analyses were complemented by qualitative observations of interactional behavior. Results: Empathic response organization increased with age and was positively associated with overall socio-communicative development. No significant differences were observed according to sex or socioeconomic context. Qualitative analyses revealed a progressive organization of empathic responses, ranging from attention and discomfort to coordinated gestural and symbolic prosocial behaviors, consistent across sociocultural settings. Conclusions: Early empathy appears as an interactionally organized and developmentally robust foundation of prosocial behavior during the first three years of life. These findings contribute to ongoing discussions on the early bases of human prosociality and its expression across diverse sociocultural contexts.
