Parents' Use of Inductive Discipline: Relations to Children's Empathy and Prosocial Behavior

Abstract

Relations between parents' discipline, children's empathic responses, and children's prosocial behavior were examined in order to evaluate Martin Hoffman's claim that children's empathy and empathy-based guilt mediate the socialization of children's prosocial behavior. 78 sixth and seventh graders (138-172 months in age), their mothers, and teachers completed multiple measures of Hoffman's constructs. Results were largely consistent with theory. Parents' use of inductive as opposed to power-assertive discipline was related to children's prosocial behavior. Children of inductive parents were more empathic; and more empathic children were more prosocial. Moreover, children's empathy was found to mediate the relation between parents' discipline and children's prosocial behavior. Few relations were obtained for children's guilt indices, but post hoc analyses yielded theoretically consistent results. Contrary to expectations, parents' use of statements of disappointment was the component of the inductive discipline score which was most strongly related to children's prosocial behavior.

The etiology of behavioral problems and competencies in very young twins.

“…There is an abundance of phenotypic research that shows that parenting practices are associated with compliance, empathy, and prosocial behaviors (e.g., Braungart-Rieker, Murphy Garwood, & Stifter, 1997;Deater-Deckard et al, 2001;Eisenberg & Fabes, 1998;Krevans & Gibbs, 1996;Whiteside-Mansell et al, 2003). Our findings of prodigious shared environmental influences on behavioral competencies would be consistent with parenting research in early childhood and suggest that there are family-wide effects that influence the development of behavioral competencies and thus make young siblings similar within this behavioral domain.…”

“…On the basis of prior behavioral genetic research with empathy and prosocial behavior, we predicted that behavioral competencies on the ITSEA would be influenced by genetic factors. Moreover, because prosocial behaviors in toddlers have been linked to parenting practices (e.g., Deater-Deckard, Dunn, O'Connor, Davies, & Golding, 2001;Eisenberg & Fabes, 1998;Knafo & Plomin, 2006a;Krevans & Gibbs, 1996; Whiteside-Mansell, Bradley, Tresch Owen, Randolph, & Cauce, 1998), it was also predicted that early behavioral competencies would show substantial shared environmental variance. …”

The impact of perception of consistency and inconsistency in parenting style on pro-social motives of adolescents

“…A positive relation between maternal warmth/ support or sensitivity and children's and adolescents' altruistic and pro-social responding was obtained ( Krevans, Gibbs, 1996). Research in the field of parenting style has often focused on the effect of the mother's style, or has considered the average score from both parents.…”

The Scale of Ethical Attitude toward Ethnic Humor (EATEH): Development, Reliability, and Validity

“…Demonstrating that empathy can partly predict EATEH agrees with previous research on empathy. Firstly, a large body of research has demonstrated that empathy is related to moral, caring, and prosocial behavior because it involves giving help to someone who is in trouble or distress (Barnett, Howard, King, & Dino, 1981;Batson et al, 1999;Batson et al, 1995;Hoffman, 1977Hoffman, , 2001Krevans & Gibbs, 1996;Shelton & Rogers, 1981) and who might belong to a different group (Batson et al, 1991). Secondly, it has been found that empathy can influence individual's attitude toward members of another group (Batson et al, 1997) whereas lack of empathy relates to intergroup aggression (Struch & Schwartz, 1989;Wang et al, 2003), social dominance orientation (Pratto, Sidanius, Stallworth, & Malle, 1994), and prejudice (Bäckström & Björklund, 2007;Johnson, Brems, & Alford-Keating, 1997;Whitley Jr, 1999).…”