Drama, Play, and Empathy

Dramatic play is a type of imaginative, pretend play where children act out the role of a character. Dramatic play has been implicated in the development of theory of mind abilities in children and adults, as it allows individuals to embody the perspective and mindset of another.

Researchers at the School of Education at Liverpool Hope University conducted a study with 33 preschool age children. In this study, the children were read the fable Little Red Riding Hood, and acted out a scene. Half of the children were assigned to an empathic condition where they answered questions like, “how do we feel when we meet the wolf in the forest?” The other half responded to factual questions such as “‘what tea shall we prepare?”

In the empathic condition, which focused primarily on the emotions, motivations, and thoughts of the story’s characters, children verbally and gesturally expressed basic human emotions (anger, sadness, happiness and fear) more frequently than children in the factual condition.

This suggests that emotional scaffolding by caregivers may play a critical role in the development of empathic cognition for young children. Discussing emotions with children and providing them an opportunity to reflect on their own emotions as well as the emotions of others can provide a firm foundation for burgeoning theory of mind abilities. Additionally, the embodiment of empathic cognition through dramatic play may provide a more rich experience for children. Dramatic play allows a child to experience emotions physically as well as intellectually and may be related to self-regulatory competencies and social cognition.