Content area
Full Text
J Youth Adolescence (2013) 42:18581872 DOI 10.1007/s10964-012-9900-6
EMPIRICAL RESEARCH
Adolescents Empathy and Prosocial Behavior in the Family Context: A Longitudinal Study
Hana Yoo Xin Feng Randal D. Day
Received: 16 September 2012 / Accepted: 21 December 2012 / Published online: 3 January 2013 Springer Science+Business Media New York 2012
Abstract Childrens empathy and prosocial behavior play an important role in their social competence. Of the inuential factors, research has demonstrated that parental behaviors and the quality of the parentchild relationship are important correlates of childrens development of empathy and prosocial behavior. The current study examined the associations between different types of parental behaviors (i.e., parental knowledge, parental solicitation, and parental psychological control), balanced connectedness in the parentchild relationship, which allows for both closeness and autonomy, and empathy and prosocial behavior in adolescents. The participants were 335 married couples (more than 80 % European American) and their adolescent child (49.0 % female; 1013 years). Data were collected at three time points for parental behaviors, balanced parentchild connectedness, and adolescents empathy and prosocial behavior, respectively. The results of structural equation modeling suggested that adolescents perceptions of parental solicitation and parental psychological control may be associated with their empathy and prosocial behavior through their perceived balanced connectedness with parents. These ndings suggest that enhancing balanced connectedness in the parentchild
relationship may contribute to promoting empathy and prosocial behavior in adolescents over time. Further, this study suggests that parental solicitation may play a role in adolescents empathic and prosocial development, possibly depending on the quality of the parentchild relationship.
Keywords Parental behaviors Parentchild
relationship Empathy Prosocial behavior
Introduction
Childrens ability to show empathy toward others plays a critical role in their social functioning and social competence, which are necessary for successful interpersonal relationships and social adjustment throughout their lives (e.g., Sallquist et al. 2009; Soenens et al. 2007). Empathy is typically dened as ones capacity to understand another persons perspectives and experience affective responses to another persons emotional state or condition (e.g., Eisenberg et al. 2006). Further, childrens empathy-related characteristics promote and facilitate prosocial behavior that is intended to voluntarily benet others, while reducing aggression and antisocial behavior (e.g., Batson 1991; Eisenberg et al. 2006; Hoffman 2000). This may be because empathy in children plays a role in orienting...