# Enhancing Empathic and Prosocial Tendencies in Maltreated Children

> **NIH NIH F31** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-IRVINE · 2020 · $34,247

## Abstract

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.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10008965
- **Project number:** 5F31HD097802-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-IRVINE
- **Principal Investigator:** Kelli Lynn Dickerson
- **Activity code:** F31 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $34,247
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2019-09-01 → 2021-06-01

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10008965

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10008965, Enhancing Empathic and Prosocial Tendencies in Maltreated Children (5F31HD097802-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10008965. Licensed CC0.

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