ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on recent research in cognitive psychology and neurobiology stressing adolescents' psychological and emotional development, especially the impact of the discovery of mirror neurons, and the findings by cognitive psychologists about the multilevelled acquisition of emotional competence that influences the complex concept of empathy. Cognitive psychologists distinguish four seminal stages in this acquisition process. The first stage is tendency of imitation that already functions with infants and toddlers who attempt to imitate other people's facial expressions. While the tendency of imitation is acquired before the first birthday, the second stage, called "egocentric empathy", will be acquired seemingly later, at age two. Third stage, children must learn to empathize with other people's feelings, beliefs, and ideas. The fourth and last stage, "empathy for another's life condition", will be achieved at age ten to eleven. The acquisition of these four stages of empathy belongs to the realm of emotional competence, a major concept that embraces all phenomena dealing with emotions.
