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Poster #155 - Parental Depression, Empathetic Concern, and Judgments of Sadness for Young Children

Thu, March 21, 12:30 to 1:45pm, Baltimore Convention Center, Floor: Level 1, Exhibit Hall B

Integrative Statement

Research indicates having a parent with depression is linked to a range of negative developmental outcomes (Natsuaki et al., 2014). One of several possible risk factors for negative outcomes in children of depressed parents is harsher parenting (Goodman & Gotlib, 2002). Parents with depression are more likely to show increased hostility towards children and report more negative parent-child interactions; depression has also been identified as a risk factor for child maltreatment ( Ridings et al., 2016). Identifying factors related to increased risk for maltreating children is important for intervention targeting. Depression is associated with aberrant cognitions (Gotlib & Joormann, 2010), including increased self- and reduced-relational focus in infant-centered narratives (Humphreys et al., 2018). Thus, differences in parental perception of children’s emotional capacities may be related to risk.

The current study examined the association between depressive symptoms in parents and judgments of children’s emotional capacity. Specifically, we examined whether increased depression was linked to reduced judgments of preschool age children’s ability to experience sadness, and whether reductions in empathy could explain this path.

Participants were 64 parents (36 male; 26 female) with children ages 18 to 36 months. Parents ranges in age from 22 to 52 years (M age=33.75. SD=6.75). Over half (55%) identified as White, 25% Asian, 13% Hispanic, 9% American Indian/Alaskan Native, and 8% Black/African- American. Data was collected via survey using Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk). Depressive symptoms were assessed using the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale, Short Form (CES-D SF). Parental empathy was assessed using the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) modified version with items replaced to examine empathy specific to the respondent’s child (IRI- PE). Specifically, the empathic concern and perspective taking subscales were examined. Parents were also asked how capable their child is of experiencing various emotions, including sadness (0=not at all capable to 6=high capable).

Depressive symptoms were significantly associated with lower perceived capability for 36- month-olds to experience sadness (b=-0.09, SE=0.03, t(62)=-2.59, p=.012, R-square=.10; figure 1). We also found a negative association between depression symptoms and empathic concern towards their child (r(62)=-.54, p<.001) and perspective-taking towards their child (r(62)=-.26, p=.038). Both measures of parental empathy were examined in a single step mediation model using PROCESS (Hayes, 2013) to examine whether the association between parental depressive symptoms and judgements of sadness could be explained by reduced empathic concern or perspective taking. A significant indirect effect was found for parental empathy (95% CI, -.11, - .02), which appeared to be driven by empathic concern (95% CI, -.13, -.04; see Figure 2). The direct effect of parental depressive symptoms on perceptions of sadness were no longer significant when the proposed mediators were included in the model (Coeff. =-.03, SE=.04, t(60)=-0.88, p=.380).

This study identifies a potential mechanism through which depression may affect parents’ understanding of their children’s capacity to feel sadness. Combined with research showing decreased responsiveness to infants in depressed mothers (Field et al., 2009), results suggest interventions that target improving empathic concern in parents may improve caregiving quality and, ultimately, reduce risk for intergenerational transmission of depression.

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