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. 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. 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. 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. 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. And studies suggest that young babies are developing expectations that certain facial expressions and vocal expressions “go together.” Babies can also mirror the physiological responses that accompany our emotions. 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. And, as I explain elsewhere, there is evidence that babies can mirror our cardiovascular responses when they observe us under emotional stress. 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, 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. Moreover, experiments indicate that babies show may show higher levels of concern when the distressed individual is another infant, rather than an adult. 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…