Children’s Heart Rate and Vicariously Aroused Affect in Response to Others’ Differing Emotional Experiences

This study examined vicariously induced Heart Rate (HR) patterns in response to others’ sadness, fear, anger and happiness, in children (N = 44, 22 girls and 22 boys, aged 7 to 10), when confronted with a brief emotion evocative film consisting of a series of evocative episodes each of which was of at least moderate intensity. HR was consistently higher relative to baseline in response to others’ fear (p < .001), sadness (p < .011), anger (p < .014) and the positive emotion of happiness/surprise (p < .002). These findings suggest that HR can reliably be used as a marker of vicariously aroused affect in response to a range of different emotions in children, given that stimulus intensity is at least moderate.