Kahhale Isabella, Byrd Amy, Hanson Jamie
Department of Psychology, University of Pittsburgh, 532 Murdoch Building, 3420 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA, 15213, USA.
Learning, Research, and Development Center, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
Clin Child Fam Psychol Rev. 2025 Mar 24. doi: 10.1007/s10567-025-00516-8.
Early life adversity (ELA) describes stressful experiences that may increase risk for psychopathology and impact emotion regulation and executive functioning systems. The influence of ELA on the development of empathy-the ability to understand and resonate with others' thoughts and emotions-remains understudied, despite the fact that empathy development relies on cognitive and emotional abilities often affected by ELA. This scoping review summarized 43 empirical articles on ELA and empathy to clarify the muddled literature and address limitations to inform future research. Across various operationalizations of ELA and empathy, 15 articles suggested that ELA was associated with increased empathy, 19 that ELA was associated with decreased empathy, and 12 pointed to a null association. ELA and empathy showed differing associations across developmental periods, with ELA being more related to higher affective empathy and lower cognitive empathy in youth and higher personal distress in adulthood. Categorization by type of adversity revealed a lack of studies on deprivation and environmental adversity, while examination of empathy operationalization revealed a need for the assessment of empathy components among youth and more task-based measures of empathy. Recommendations for future research include the need to (a) clarify operationalizations of ELA, (b) explore empathy components and naturalistic measures, and (c) focus on outcomes in adolescence. Continued efforts to understand the connection between ELA and empathy will provide valuable insight into the impact of adversity on socioemotional development and guide psychosocial interventions for individuals at risk for maladaptive outcomes following adverse childhood experiences.
早期生活逆境（ELA）指的是那些可能增加精神病理学风险并影响情绪调节和执行功能系统的压力经历。尽管共情能力的发展依赖于常受ELA影响的认知和情感能力，但ELA对共情（即理解他人想法和情感并产生共鸣的能力）发展的影响仍未得到充分研究。本综述总结了43篇关于ELA与共情的实证文章，以厘清混乱的文献并解决相关局限，为未来研究提供参考。在ELA和共情的各种不同操作化定义中，15篇文章表明ELA与共情增加有关，19篇表明ELA与共情减少有关，12篇则指出两者无关联。ELA与共情在不同发育阶段呈现出不同的关联，在青少年时期，ELA与更高的情感共情和更低的认知共情更相关，而在成年期则与更高的个人痛苦相关。按逆境类型分类发现，关于剥夺和环境逆境的研究较少，而对共情操作化定义的考察表明，需要对青少年的共情成分进行评估，并采用更多基于任务的共情测量方法。对未来研究的建议包括：（a）明确ELA的操作化定义；（b）探索共情成分和自然主义测量方法；（c）关注青少年时期的结果。持续努力理解ELA与共情之间的联系，将为逆境对社会情感发展的影响提供有价值的见解，并指导针对童年不良经历后有适应不良后果风险个体的心理社会干预。
