Values, Empathy and Friendship Quality in Adolescence

JOSÉ EDUARDO MORENO; LUCAS MARCELO RODRIGUEZ; CARINA HESS ; BELÉN MESURADO; MARÍA EVA GHIGLIONE

Baltimore

Conferencia; 2019 SRCD Biennial Meeting; 2019

Society for Research in Child Development

Values are important to improve positive children and adolescents development(Leman, Smith & Petersen, 2017). They have been considered as an importantaspect in psychosocial and moral development. They can be defined as nonnegotiable ideas, which constitute the basis by which the person acts autonomously, in any situation, in a positive, adequate and valid way (Quintana Cabanas, 1993).Antolín Suárez and others (2011) in their literature review have identified values for positive development in adolescents, such as: social values (prosociality, social commitment and justice and social equality), personal values (wholeness,responsibility and honesty) and individualistic values (hedonism and social recognition). Empathy is the capacity to understand the perspective or the feelings and affections of the other, as well as putting oneself in the place of the other (Sánchez-Queija, Oliva & Parra, 2006; Martí Vilar & Lousado Marques, 2010). Eisenberg and Strayer (1992) affirm that empathy implies sharing the emotion that is perceived in the other, feeling with the other. For Davis (1980, 1983), empathy implies cognitive processes of understanding and adopting perspectives, as well as affective processes of sympathy and experiences of feelings coherent with the experiences of the other. Empathy and values are important variables in peer relationships, particularly in friendship. Bukowski, Hoza and Boivin (1994) have studied the dimensions of friendship quality: companionship, conflict, balance, help, security and closeness. This study aims to analyze the phenomena to find out if personal, social and individualistic values and empathy may foster or thwart different dimensions of friendship quality. Hierarchical multiple regression was used to analyze data. The results have shown that personal values are important predictors of balance, help, security and closeness. Perspective Taking (Empathy) is an important predictor of help and security. Empathic Concern (Empathy) is an important predictor of balance, help, security and closeness. In turn, individualistic values negatively predict balance and help. These values positively predict conflict (see Table 1). The results have shown that personal values, perspective taking and empathic concern are important to improve friendship quality.