Links between perception of parental behaviour, social cognitions and prosocial behaviour in early adolescence

RICHAUD, M. C., CARLO, G., MESURADO, B., FERNÁNDEZ, C.

Filadelfia, USA

Congreso; Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research on Adolescence; 2010

Eisenberg and Fabes (1998) observed that prosocial behavior is the result of multiple individual and situational factors including parental variables and empathy-related traits. Traditionally, there are two major dimensions of parenting styles that have been theoretically related to prosocial and moral development: u      Parental warmth or responsiveness u      Control Responsive parents often express and model well-regulated moral emotions, which might facilitate sympathy and prosocial behaviors (Barnett, 1987; Eisenberg & Murphy, 1995 Moreover, the characteristics of a demanding parent might be to lead to strongly internalized moral values (Grusec & Goodnow, 1994). On the contrary, a distant or hostile parenting style reflects harsh and neglectful parent–child interactions, which could lead to antisocial and aggressive outcomes (Maccoby & Martin, 1983). However, the existing evidence for the links between parenting styles and prosocial behaviors are quite scarce, especially among adolescents (Carlo, Fabes, Laible, & Kupanoff, 1999). As a result, some scholars have suggested that parenting practices, rather than parenting styles, may better predict behavioral outcomes and prosocial behaviors (Carlo et al., 1998, 2007; see Darling & Steinberg, 1993). Furthermore, some studies have found a positive relationship between the mother’s empathic caring and children’s altruism (Zahn-Waxler, Radke-Yarrow & King, 1979).  Studies on preschool children have also found that non-authoritarian and non-punishing mothers have children with higher levels of affective and cognitive empathy, and prosocial behavior (Eisenberg, Lennon & Roth 1983; Kestenbaum, Farber, & Sroufe, 1989). It has also been noticed that parental modelling of empathic relationships towards their children and others in their presence, is strongly linked to the development of prosocial attitudes and to the behavior in children (McDevitt, Lennon and Kopriva, 1991; Zahn-Waxler, Radke-Yarrow & King, 1979). In previous research we have also found that the perception that children have of their parents’ empathy is related to children’s own empathy (Richaud de Minzi, 2006). Moreover, we studied the possible moderating effects of demographic variables such as gender on these hypothesized relationships. The often-reported wide individual and group differences in specific forms of prosocial behaviors suggest the need to study the relationships between parenting styles or practices, and empathy and specific forms of prosocial behaviors (see Carlo, 2007; Carlo & Randall, 2001; Eisenberg, 1986). Therefore, we examined parenting styles, practices, and empathy associated with specific forms of prosocial behaviors in adolescent boys and girls, and mediated by adolescents empathy.