Emociones morales y conducta en niños y niñas

espanolEl estudio analizo la relacion de la empatia y la culpa con diversas conductas socio-morales, asi como las diferencias de genero al respecto en ninos y ninas de 6 a 8 anos. Las madres respondieron a varias escalas del Cuestionario de Internalizacion Moral de Kochanska, De Vet, Goldman, Murray y Putnam (1994) y los profesores a dos escalas del Perfil Socioafectivo de La Freniere, Dubeau, Capuano y Janosz (1988) y a la escala de Impulsividad del Cuestionario de Conducta Infantil de Goldsmith y Rothbart (1991). La culpa y la empatia mostraron una estrecha asociacion entre si. Por otra parte, ambas se asociaron con la reparacion y la conducta internalizada. Ademas, los resultados apuntan, en las ninas, a una asociacion positiva de ambas emociones con la conducta prosocial y negativa con la conducta agresiva. Las ninas presentaban en todas las variables, excepto en culpa y reparacion, indices morales significativamente mas elevados que los ninos, aunque el tamano del efecto era bajo. EnglishThis study analyzed the relationship between both empathy and guilt, and some socio-moral behaviors, as well as gender differences in these variables, in 6-to-8-year-old children. Mothers were administered several scales from the Moral Internalization Questionnaire by Kochanska, De Vet, Goldman, Murray, & Putnam (1994), and teachers were administered two scales from the Socioaffective Profile by La Freniere, Dubeau, Capuano, & Janosz (1988) and the Impulsivity scale from the Child Behavior Questionnaire by Goldsmith & Rothbart (1991). A close relationship was found between guilt and empathy. Besides, both were associated with reparation and internalized behavior. Moreover, results suggest, in girls, a positive association of both emotions with prosocial behavior and a negative association with aggressive behavior. Girls showed significantly higher moral indexes than boys in all variables, except in guilt and reparation, but the effect size was small.