A clear strength of facial, gestural, and vocal indexes of empathy is that they are less subject to the self-presentational

biases inherent in self-report measures, particularly for younger children who have yet to learn socially appropriate facial display rules (Cole, 1986) or for participants who are videotaped unobtrusively. Therefore, facial, gestural, and vocal measures of empathyrelated responding have been used with children from as young as 15 months old through elementary school (e.g., Miller, Eisenberg, Fabes, & Shell, 1996; Zahn-Waxler et al., 1992), as well as with adults (Eisenberg et al., 1994). It should be noted, however, that facial and gestural measures also have limitations. First, the facial expressions in situations involving vicarious emotion reflect not only empathy but also the participants emotional expressivity. Expressive children are likely to be identified as more empathic with facial gestural, and vocal measures than less expressive children, although the levels of their empathic arousal might be the same. Moreover, as children age, they increasingly become able to mask their expression of negative emotion (Cole, 1986), and to do so in a variety of situations (Eisenberg, Fabes, et al., 1988). Thus, as in the case of self-reports, self-presentational biases and demand characteristics may affect older childrens and adults willingness to display negative emotions (Losoya & Eisenberg, 2001). Therefore, facial indexes may not be accurate markers of empathy-related responding for older children and adults, especially if facial expressions are assessed when individuals are in view of others.