Children’s Perceptions of Personal Responsibility for Mothers' Emotions Predict Empathic Behaviors During the COVID-19 Pandemic

• In Event: Poster Session 04
  In Poster Session: PS 04 Topic - Moral Development

Abstract

Stress, anxiety, and depression among children (Racine et al., 2020) and adults (Czeisler et al., 2020) are rising dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic, and compassionate responses to others’ distress are critical to societal harmony during this ubiquitously stressful period. Mothers’ emotional responses during COVID-19 may influence the way children respond to others’ stress and emotions. Socialization processes (Spinrad & Eisenberg, 2014) are key to children’s empathy development, perhaps especially children’s perceived role in causing mothers’ emotions (i.e., their self-blame; Goodman et al., 2011). Based on empirical models suggesting both adaptive and maladaptive interpersonal processes underlie children’s tendencies to display very high levels of empathy (e.g., Tone & Tully, 2014), we predict children’s perceptions of self-blame for their mother’s emotions during the pandemic, specifically her illness-related worry, sadness, and happiness, will have a positive quadratic association with their empathic behaviors. That is, high levels of empathic behaviors will be found in children with very low self-blame for their mother’s emotions, which is likely an accurate perception of their role and an indication of overall healthy emotional functioning, and children with very high self-blame for their mother’s emotions, which is possibly a sign of personal distress responses and over-involvement in mother’s emotions.

Participants are being recruited from a longitudinal study (N=124) examining social and emotional functioning across childhood, and data collection is ongoing. Data are being collected via online surveys sent to parents and children between July and November 2020. To date, 30 children (53% female; MAge= 11.77, SD=.97 years) and their parents have completed the survey. Children completed self-report scales measuring their self-blame for their mother’s sadness, happiness, and illness-related worry (modified from Goodman et al., 2011), and parents completed a scale assessing their child’s empathic behavior in everyday contexts (Kochanska et al., 1994).

Hypotheses were tested using multiple nonlinear regression analyses with age and gender as covariates. As predicted, there was a significant positive quadratic association between self-blame for mothers’ illness-related worry and empathic behaviors (B=.419, p=.024; see Figure 1). Low self-blame for mother’s worry may be associated with adaptive processes for understanding others’ emotions that allow the child to engage empathically with others’ distress, and high self-blame for mothers’ emotions may be a sign of excessive attributions of responsibility for others’ emotional well-being that undergird empathic behavior but through maladaptive processes. There was not a significant association (quadratic or linear) between children’s self-blame for mothers’ sadness and empathic behaviors (B=-.279, p=.283). Children may not observe their parents’ sadness as frequently as their happiness or worry, and thus self-blame for mothers’ sadness may not be as salient. Lastly, there was a significant positive linear association between self-blame for mothers’ happiness and empathic behaviors (B=.419, p=.026) but not a significant quadratic association (B=-.298, p=.082). Children’s self-blame for mothers’ happiness and children’s empathy may both be related to adeptness for reading others’ emotions and wanting to join their happiness. Parents’ socialization of illness-related worry and happiness may be a fruitful avenue for encouraging children’s empathy during the pandemic.

Authors

• Erin McDonald, Georgia State University
  Presenting Author

• Kyrsten Anne Buote, Georgia State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Arden Mekelle Cooper, Georgia State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sarah Garcia, University of Denver
  Non-Presenting Author

• Erin Christine Tully, Georgia State University
  Non-Presenting Author