Abstract (eng)
This study examinend the relations of children´s temperament, attachment security and their interaction to empathy and helping behavior in 12-24 month old toddlers. 67 children were visited at home and in their care providers home. Empathy-related responding to distress was measured in children´s responses to simulated distress in their mothers and care providers. Attachment security was assessed for mother and care provider by the german version of the Attachment Q-Sort (AQS-G, Ahnert et al., in Vorbereitung). Additionally, mothers and care providers reported on children´s temperament. Empathy-related responding to mother´s distress was associated with positive emotionality, inhibition and abilities concerning selfregulation. High positive emotionality and high selfregulation was associated with high levels of empathy and helping behavior, but only for boys. Whereas Girls beeing described as less inhibited and fearless in new situations showed more empathy-related responding. Inhibition was also negatively related to helping behavior towards the care provider in generell. But more salient for empathy towards the care providers was attachment security, with securly attached children responding more empathically to their care providers distress. Moreover, signifikant interactions between temperament and attachment security were found, but only for care providers. Only when children were securly attached, less inhibition was associated with more helping behavior towards their care provider, otherwise the relation was negative. The same patterns were found for children high in selfregulation. Higher selfregulation abilities were only related to greater empathy when attachment security was high. Otherweise the relation was negative. The relations between temperament and empathy-related responding to mother´s distress was not moderated by attachment security. Empathy towards mothers was related to temperament itself, regardless of attachment security.