Project Summary A predominant concern regarding maltreated children’s psychosocial development has been identifying ways of reducing the cycles of violence that affect children in the short- and long-term, as well as families, communities, and subsequent generations. Most intervention efforts have focused on reducing problematic behaviors that stem from maltreatment. Very few have directed attention toward understanding and augmenting positive capacities, such as empathy and altruism, in this population. Yet, such capacities are fundamental to children’s broader social functioning and well-being, and, improving these may represent an alternative, yet equally important approach to promoting high-risk children’s psychosocial adjustment and disrupting the recurring cycles of violence and abuse. The program of research proposed in this F31 application will focus on two key positive psychosocial processes: empathic concern and prosociality, and evaluate whether emotion recognition deficits common to maltreated children undermine these processes, and whether, by improving emotion recognition, these processes will be enhanced. Aims are twofold: to determine the associations among maltreatment, emotion recognition, and empathic concern, and to empirically test, via small-scale experimental manipulations, whether maltreated children’s empathic and prosocial tendencies can be increased via improvements in their recognition of others’ emotions. Findings will provide much-needed insight into maltreated children’s potential for empathic and prosocial behavior, and can inform intervention and prevention efforts that build on positive processes to improve developmental outcomes in a population at substantial risk for maladjustment. More broadly, the work, as well as the mentoring provided by the sponsors and the F31 mechanism, will lay the foundation for the applicant’s submission of a post-doctoral NRSA, a Career Development (K) award, and subsequent R01 and R03 grants that continue to consider and direct attention toward improving positive functioning in maltreated and possibly other vulnerable populations as a way of reducing risk and long-term negative outcomes.