Parenting and Children's Empathy Across Age and Risk Context

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

Empathy is a highly valued socio-emotional capacity. It includes a variety of forms, including affective and cognitive empathy and empathy for others’ distress and joy. Different aspects of parenting can shape the development of these forms in important ways. Current understanding of these links is limited, however, particularly regarding specific associations between parenting dimensions and empathy forms across age and the impact of risk context on these processes. The present symposium addresses these gaps. It consists of four novel studies examining the linkages between parenting variables and children’s empathy. The presentations encompass different parental behaviors and empathy forms, a wide range of ages (from three months to 12 years), diverse risk contexts (parental depression, maltreatment, acute stress due to Covid lockdown, and low risk), and different roles of empathy (as a developmental outcome, predictor, and/or moderator).

The first paper longitudinally examines the contributions of three aspects of responsive parenting to the development of empathic concern and empathic happiness in infancy. The second paper examines the contribution of three dimensions of parenting during the Covid-19 lockdown in Israel to children's empathy and emotional regulation. The third paper longitudinally examines the bidirectional links between mothers’ and children’s cognitive and emotional empathy, as a function of abuse risk. The fourth paper examines whether child empathy moderates the link between parent and offspring depression.

Taken together, the symposium provides new insights regarding distinct parenting contributions to empathy and the complex interplay between parenting and children’s empathy, with promising avenues for future research.

Sub Unit

• Moral Development

Chairs

• Tal Orlitsky, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

• Maayan Davidov, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Individual Presentations

• Distinct Links Between Responsive Parenting and Early Empathic Development - Presenting Author: Tal Orlitsky, Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Non-Presenting Author: Maayan Davidov, Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Non-Presenting Author: Maia Ram Berger, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Non-Presenting Author: Yael Paz, University of Pennsylvania; Non-Presenting Author: Ronit Roth-Hanania, The Academic College of Tel Aviv Yaffo; Non-Presenting Author: Carolyn Zahn-Waxler, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Parents' Emotional Behavior and Their Children's Empathy and Emotion Regulation During the Covid-19 Lockdown - Presenting Author: Rotem Schapira, Levinsky College of Education and Tel-Aviv university, Israel

• The Role of Abuse Risk in the Bidirectional Relationship Between Maternal and Child's Empathy - Non-Presenting Author: Adi Meidan, Ben-Gurion University; Presenting Author: Florina Uzefovsky, Ben Gurion University in the Negev

• Child Empathic Concern Moderates Links Between Parent and Offspring Depression - Presenting Author: Emily Hilton, University of Wisconsin - Madison; Non-Presenting Author: Elizabeth M. Planalp, University of Wisconsin - Madison; Non-Presenting Author: Carol Ann Van Hulle, University of Wisconsin, Madison; Non-Presenting Author: H Hill Goldsmith, University of Wisconsin - Madison; Non-Presenting Author: Carolyn Zahn-Waxler, University of Wisconsin - Madison