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Children and adolescents: empathy and the processing of intransitive and pantomime gestures

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Summary:Gestures are a form of nonverbal communication that can be distinguished into meaningful (intransitive, transitive and pantomimes) and meaningless and have an important role in social interaction. While pantomime gestures imply the representation of the use of an object, intransitive gestures do not involve the use of objects and are characterized by being communicative, expressive or symbolic. Regarding these gestures, there is a dimension that is still poorly investigated - the prosocial gestures that can induce a prosocial behavior and require sociocommunicative abilities as empathy. In this study, 30 individuals (6 children and 24 adolescents) participated voluntarily, with the aim of investigating how gestures performed toward or away from the body are performed and recognized during childhood and adolescence. Additionally, the role of empathy in the recognition of different types of gestures was also investigated throughout development. To this end, the participants responded to some social and cognitive assessment measures, as well as to an experimental task, in which they evaluated whether the observed gesture was meaningful or not. The results show that gestures are better performed and recognized by older subjects and point out to the relevance of prosocial gestures, since they are more strongly associated with age. Higher levels of empathy were positively associated with the performance of intransitive gestures and the recognition of pantomime gestures, only in children. Regarding the direction of gestures, no significant differences were found between groups. The findings of this study can be important for a greater understanding on gestures development, highlighting the role of empathy in this process.
Main Authors:Pereira, Ana Catarina Ferreira
Subject:Gestures Empathy Prosocial gestures Intransitive gestures Pantomime gestures Prosocial behavior Childhood Adolescence Gestos Empatia Gestos pró-sociais Gestos intransitivos Gestos pantomímicos Comportamento pró-social Infância Adolescência Ciências Sociais::Psicologia
Year:2020
Country:Portugal
Document type:master thesis
Access type:open access
Associated institution:Universidade do Minho
Language:English
Origin:RepositóriUM - Universidade do Minho

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