Antecedents of Empathic Capacity: Emotion Regulation Styles as Mediators between Controlling Versus Autonomy - Supportive Maternal Practices and Empathy

Abstract

Research suggests that empathy may lead to either sympathy, involving emotional identification with another person, accompanied by caring and concern, or personal distress, that is emotional reaction to another's condition that is aversive and self-centered (Eisenberg et al., 2010). While the former frequently predicts prosocial behavior, the latter is hypothesized to predict it only when helping is the easiest way to alleviate the distress of the helper (Batson, 1991). Drawing on self-determination theory, we hypothesized that autonomy supportive parenting (taking the child’s perspective and providing choice) may predict the child’s integrative emotion regulation, and this may predict emotional identification with others in need (i.e., sympathy). In contrast, the autonomy suppressive practice of conditional regard may predict dysregulation of emotions, leading to personal distress when facing a close friend’s adversity. Participants included 147 college students and 147 close friends. Target participants reported perceptions of their mothers’ behaviour and their own emotion regulation styles, while close friends reported perceptions of target participants’ sympathy and personal distress responses. Results support the study’s hypotheses and provide insights into the socialization of emotion regulation and empathy. Keywords: parental conditional regard, autonomy support, emotion regulation, empathetic capacity

Family and developmental correlates of adolescent involvement in decision making about screen use

“…Authoritative, autonomy-supportive parenting can help strengthen intrinsic motivation ( Soenens and Vansteenkiste, 2010 ), and build skills in integrative emotion regulation ( Gao et al, 2021 ), which can support more expansive and flexible cognitions ( Kashdan and Rottenberg, 2010 ). Through these cognitive pathways, and through parental modeling and the strengthened parent–child relationship ( Yoo et al, 2013 ), autonomy supportive parenting is associated with greater child prosociality ( Wong et al, 2021 , Kalman-Halevia et al, 2023 , Kang and Guo, 2022 ). Such strengthened assets may contribute positively to future self-regulatory capacity.…”