Neuroticism Moderates the Relation Between ...

Neuroticism Moderates the Relation Between Parenting and Empathy and Between Empathy and Prosocial Behavior Maria Paula Chaparro, Joan E. Grusec Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, Volume 62, Number 2, April 2016, pp. 105-128 (Article) Published by Wayne State University Press

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M E R R I L L - P A L M E R Q U A RT E R LY , V O L . 6 2 , N O . 2

Neuroticism Moderates the Relation Between Parenting and Empathy and Between Empathy and Prosocial Behavior Maria Paula Chaparro and Joan E. Grusec University of Toronto

Links among neuroticism, inconsistent discipline, and empathy were assessed in a longitudinal study of adolescents. Mothers’, but not fathers’, inconsistent discipline predicted decreases in empathy 2 years later, but only for adolescents who were low in neuroticism. For those who were high, there was no effect of inconsistent discipline. Authoritarian parenting was not related to empathy, nor was there any interaction between neuroticism and authoritarianism. Neuroticism also moderated the relation between empathy and adolescent prosocial behavior, with empathy and prosocial behavior positively related for adolescents who were high in neuroticism but not related for those who were low in neuroticism. These findings shed light on the specificity of parenting antecedents of empathic behavior in adolescence as well as the role of personality in this relation.

Empathy, or the ability to experience an emotion consistent with the distress of others, is a critical skill that enables children to function adaptively in a social context. Thus, empathy is a negative predictor of aggression (Björkqvist, Österman, & Kaukiainen, 2000), bullying (Olweus, 1993), and conduct disorder in childhood as well as antisocial behavior in adolescence and adulthood (Bernstein, 1996). Empathy is also positively associated with prosocial behavior and higher levels of moral reasoning

Maria Paula Chaparro and Joan E. Grusec, Department of Psychology. This research was supported by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada to Joan E. Grusec. We are most grateful for the participation of families in this research, as well as for the work of numerous undergraduates who assisted in data collection. Address correspondence to Joan E. Grusec, Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, 100 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario M5S 1A1, Canada. Phone: (416) 978-7610. Fax: (416) 978-4811. E-mail: [email protected]. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, April 2016, Vol. 62, No. 2, pp. 105–128. Copyright © 2016 by Wayne State University Press, Detroit, MI 48201.

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(Eisenberg & Eggum, 2009; Malti, Gummerum, Keller, & Buchmann, 2009). Presumably, individuals who are able to understand and sympathize with other people’s distress are motivated to help them as well as to avoid hurting them. Some studies have assessed the role of temperament, particularly behavioral inhibition or fearfulness, as well as that of socialization experiences or parenting in the development of empathy in young children. Less frequently studied has been the role of personality or temperament (with the latter often described as a subset of personality) in the development of adolescents’ empathy, and even scarcer are studies looking at the interaction between personality and parenting in the socialization of empathy (Bates & Pettit, 2015). The effects of parenting and personality on adolescent empathy, as well as their interaction, were the primary focus of the present study. The particular aspect of personality we assessed was neuroticism.

Parenting and Empathy There is considerable evidence that parenting is a predictor of empathy and other, related, socioemotional outcomes. Negative affect on the part of the parent, such as rejection or lack of availability, has been found to decrease the child’s empathic capacity (Hyde, Shaw, & Moilanen, 2010). Laible, Eye, and Carlo (2008) found that adolescents who reported that their parents used high levels of inductive discipline and low levels of power assertion were more likely to score high on sympathy and empathic anger—that is, anger when others are victimized. Using a sample of university students, Schaffer, Clark, and Jeglic (2009) found that permissive parenting was associated with decreases in empathic responding. This effect however, was not present for authoritarian parenting, a result that underlines the specificity of negative disciplinary parenting practices in their effects on aspects of children’s emotional development. Inconsistent discipline, which is considered to be a specific dimension of permissive parenting (Robinson, Mandleco, Olsen, & Hart, 2001), is defined as the lack of follow-through in the maintenance of and adherence to standards of conduct and rules, as well as unpredictability in the administration of negative consequences (Chamberlain & Patterson, 1995; Melby et al., 1998): It has also been linked to behaviors that involve low levels of empathic responding. Indeed, several studies have identified parental inconsistent discipline as one of the most important family factors predicting children’s major behavioral and emotional problems, as well as adolescents’ engagement in delinquent behavior (Dwairy, Achoui, Abouserie, & Farah, 2006; Halgunseth, Perkins, Lippold, & Nix, 2013; Sanders & Ralph, 2005). Accordingly, we focused on this specific dimension of parenting in the present investigation.

Parenting, Neuroticism, Empathy, and Prosocial Behavior

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Temperament/Personality and Empathy Neuroticism in adolescents and adults is defined as negative emotionality that includes fear, anxiety, and guilt and is often linked to a higher risk for internalizing symptoms (Matthews, Saklofske, Costa, Deary, & Zeidner, 1998). Individuals who are high in neuroticism are more likely to interpret ordinary events as threatening and are frequently shyer and more selfconscious (Hettema, Neale, Myers, & Prescott, 2006). In contrast, those who are low in neuroticism are more emotionally stable and less reactive to stress. Behavioral inhibition in children is defined as the tendency to be shy and to react with fear and withdrawal to unfamiliar situations (Kagan, Snidman, Zenter, & Peterson, 1999). Although we certainly do not argue that behavioral inhibition and neuroticism are identical, they do have some characteristics in common. For example, previous research with 8- to 13-year-olds has indicated that behavioral inhibition is best characterized by high levels of neuroticism and low levels of extraversion, suggesting that neuroticism overlaps to a degree with early behavioral inhibition, particularly with respect to fearfulness (Muris & Dietvorst, 2006; Muris et al., 2009). Accordingly, we review studies that have looked at the relation between both behavioral inhibition and empathy and between neuroticism and empathy. Spinrad and Stifter (2006) found that more fearful or behaviorally inhibited children, when exposed to distress in others, experienced more negative affect, as well as showed greater amounts of concerned attention, comfort-seeking, and self-soothing behaviors. The investigators suggest that these different behaviors reflect a struggle between the children’s own personal distress and responding to the distress of another. Similarly, Liew et al. (2011) found that fearful temperament positively predicted young children’s physiological arousal and personal distress when watching a stranger in distress. The findings in these studies, then, would suggest that fearfulness makes children more sensitive to the distress of others, as well as causing them personal distress. Findings are less consistent when the focus is more on empathic concern than on personal distress, however. For example, Cornell and Frick (2007) found no relation between behavioral inhibition and empathy, with empathy assessed both by empathic and by prosocial responses to another’s distress. Turning to neuroticism, Mooradian, Davis, and Matzler (2011) found that neuroticism positively predicted personal distress in response to the distress of another in emerging adulthood. However, Lee (2009) found no relation between neuroticism and empathic concern. Joliffe and Farrington (2005) found that neuroticism was associated with only the affective

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component of their empathy scale (affect congruence) but unrelated to the cognitive component (understanding of another’s emotions). These results suggest that fearful or neurotic individuals may experience levels of empathic arousal that are distressing, and research has shown that personal distress is not always conducive to the display of help and comfort to others. This is particularly true when escape from the distressing situation is possible (Eisenberg, Fabes, & Murphy, 1996). Whether empathy and/or personal distress displayed by fearful children (or neurotic adolescents) actually leads to prosocial behavior surely depends on the degree of arousal and the context.

Temperament/Personality as a Moderator of the Effect of Parenting on Empathy Considerable research indicates that children’s temperament moderates the effects of parenting. Usually this research is guided by a transactional/ dual-risk model (Sameroff, 1983) which suggests that children with a problematic temperament are more likely to be negatively affected by poor parenting than those with a more benign temperament. In accord with the transactional/dual-risk model, harsh parenting predicts high levels of externalizing behavior and low levels of positive behavior for children who are high in fear or behavioral inhibition (Kochanska, 1995; Kochanska, Aksan, & Joy, 2007; Lengua, 2008), whereas it has no impact on the behavior of children who are low in fear. Similarly, children who are behaviorally inhibited are more likely to display social anxiety if they have experienced maternal overcontrol than those who are not inhibited (LewisMorrarty, Dozier, Bernard, Terracciano, & Moore, 2012). Cornell and Frick (2007) demonstrated, however, that it is not always behaviorally inhibited children who are more affected by poor parenting. They found that levels of empathic concern in preschoolers who were characterized by a fearless or behaviorally uninhibited temperament were more affected by inconsistent discipline (although not by authoritarian parenting) than were levels of empathic concern in inhibited children. Thus, their findings highlight that it is not only children with so-called difficult temperaments who may be particularly responsive to problematic parenting but that individuals with easy temperaments may also be differentially affected, depending on the nature of the parenting as well as the nature of the child outcome.

The Present Study In the present, longitudinal, study, we investigated the interrelations among inconsistent parenting, authoritarian parenting, neuroticism, and empathy


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in adolescents. We expected that, in parallel to the findings reported by Cornell and Frick (2007) with young children, empathic responding in adolescents who were low in neuroticism would be more adversely affected by inconsistent parenting than would empathic responding in adolescents who were high in neuroticism. We suggest that is because individuals who are high in neuroticism are sensitive to punishment and insensitive to reward, whereas the opposite is true for individuals who are low in neuroticism (Boksema, Topsa, Westera, Meijmana, & Lorist, 2006). As a result, adolescents who are high in neuroticism should be particularly responsive to the possibility of punishment by an inconsistent parent and, therefore, would inhibit antisocial behavior in order to protect themselves against the possibility of punishment. Adolescents who are low in neuroticism, on the other hand, would lack this sensitivity to the possibility of punishment and so would continue to engage in antisocial acts, including lack of consideration for the feelings and needs of others. In contrast, authoritarian parenting with its consistent enforcement of rules would not provide the opportunity for those low in neuroticism to experience the rewarding aspects of antisocial action, given that such action would not be permitted. Thus, we expected that level of neuroticism would make no difference in adolescents’ reactions to authoritarian parenting, thereby replicating Cornell and Frick’s finding with young children. Neuroticism, empathy, and prosocial behavior. Our primary focus in this study was on neuroticism as a moderator of the effects of inconsistent discipline on empathy. We addressed a related question, however, on the relation among neuroticism, empathy, and prosocial behavior. In the foregoing discussion regarding the relation between temperament/personality and empathy, we noted that the results of a number of studies suggest behaviorally inhibited and neurotic children may experience personal distress that could make them less, rather than more, likely to respond prosocially. Accordingly, we assessed the prosocial behavior of adolescent participants in our study. We examined whether children who were high on neuroticism and who scored high on empathy were able to translate that empathy into prosocial behavior. Thus, we assessed the relation between empathy and prosocial behavior for individuals who were high and those who were low in neuroticism. Hypotheses. We measured parenting and empathy at a first time point (T1) and neuroticism, empathy, and prosocial behavior at a second time point (T2). We predicted that (a) inconsistent discipline would predict lower levels of empathy at T2 after controlling for empathy at T1, but most strongly for adolescents who were low on neuroticism, and (b) there would be no relation between authoritarian parenting and empathy regardless of


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adolescents’ level of neuroticism. Additionally, we assessed the relation between empathy and teacher-rated prosocial behavior, with neuroticism as a moderator, so as to determine whether the empathy of adolescents who were high in neuroticism was translated into prosocial behavior. Method

Participants Participants were from a large Canadian city and drawn from a database of families maintained by the researchers’ university department. Families were initially recruited from hospitals when the mothers gave birth, from baby shows, and during the adolescents’ participation in local summer camps. The original sample at T1 consisted of 150 early adolescents (46% girls, age range 10–12 years, mean age 11 years), their mothers, and 114 of their fathers. Of those who participated in the T1 study, 111 adolescents (49% girls, mean age 12 years 10 months) participated again approximately 2 years later. Of the adolescents who returned at T2, T1 data were available for all of their mothers and 83 of their fathers. Additionally, 86 teachers participated at T2. Ninety-four of the mothers of the 111 adolescents from T2 were married or living in a common-law partnership at T2. All but one mother had completed high school, and 105 mothers had attended college or university. Mothers identified their ethnic backgrounds as follows: 55% Western European, 16% Canadian, 12% Asian, 8% Eastern European, 4% African/Caribbean, and 5% other (e.g., mixed parentage, White South African, Latino). All but one mother–adolescent dyad gave permission to contact a teacher at T2 for the assessment of prosocial behavior, and 86 teachers (81% of the sample) responded. Adolescents who did not return at T2 were compared with those who did on their levels of empathy at T1, their family’s demographic information, and their parents’ levels of inconsistent discipline and authoritarianism at T1. Adolescents who did not participate at T2 did not differ in their empathy levels at T1 when compared with those who returned, t(148) = .29, ns. There were no differences in mothers’ relationship status and level of education or adolescents’ sex. Mothers of those adolescents who did not participate at T2 had significantly lower inconsistent discipline scores when compared with mothers of adolescents who returned, t(148) = 2.39, p = .02, although they did not differ in their levels of authoritarianism, t(148) = −.25, ns. Fathers of adolescents who did not participate at T2 did not differ in their levels of inconsistent discipline, t(112) = 1.26, ns, nor in their levels of authoritarianism t(112) = .83, ns, from the fathers of adolescents who participated at T2. The findings regarding adolescents


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whose teachers responded to a request for information were no different for those whose teachers did not respond on the measures of neuroticism, t(109) = .42, ns, or empathy, t(109) = 1.79, ns, at T2.

Procedure Data collection for mothers and adolescents took place in a university research laboratory. Fathers filled out questionnaires at home, and mothers brought these to the lab. Questionnaires at T1 were presented in a paperand-pencil format and those at T2 on the computer. Questionnaires were mailed directly to the teacher at T2 after permission had been received from the mothers and the adolescents.

Measures Empathy at T1. Adolescents watched a 3-minute fragment from the animated movie Finding Nemo (2003) that showed a father fish witnessing his son being trapped by a diver. Both father and son displayed high levels of distress during the movie segment. Adolescents were asked to describe their thoughts and feelings in response to what they saw. Answers were audio-recorded and transcribed. Responses were rated for levels of empathy toward both characters on a 4-point scale: 0 = no indication of empathy, just a description of the events viewed; 1 = low level of empathy, identification with characters but no explicit empathy (e.g., “Nemo must be scared”); 2 = moderate level of empathy, explicit statement of empathy but not well elaborated (e.g., “Poor Nemo, I felt sad for him”); and 3 = high level of empathy, explicit and well-elaborated statement of empathy (e.g., “I felt so sad for Nemo. He was so scared being taken away from his father, poor little fish”). Interrater reliability, based on 25% of randomly selected participants, was r = .88. With respect to validity, Davidov and Grusec (2006) found that a comparable measure (describing thoughts and feelings in response to a distressing video) correlated with adults’ self-reported empathy. Empathy at T2. Adolescents completed the self-report Index of Empathy for Children and Adolescents (BIECA; Bryant, 1982). Although, this measure was not in the same format as the Finding Nemo video clip, it assessed similar reactions to distress of others. The questionnaire consists of 22 items assessing dispositional empathy that are similar to the sorts of statements that were coded for empathy in the T1 measure—items such as “It makes me sad to see a girl who can’t find anyone to play with,” “I get upset when I see an animal being hurt,” and “Kids who have no friends probably don’t want any” (reverse-scored). The items were presented on a computer, and adolescents had to answer “Yes” or “No” to each statement


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(1 = no and 2 = yes). Cronbach’s alpha for this scale was. 75. Good validity for this measure has been established with the total BIECA score being negatively associated with antisocial behavior (de Kemp, Overbeek, de Wied, Engels, & Scholte 2007; Holmqvist, 2008). Neuroticism at T2. Adolescents completed the Big Five Inventory of personality traits (John & Srivastava, 1999). They were presented with 44 statements about personality qualities and asked to rate how much they believed each of the statements applied to themselves on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The eight items from the Neuroticism scale (e.g., “Can be tense” and “Gets nervous easily”) were used for the present study. Cronbach’s alpha for these items was .78. Parental inconsistent discipline and authoritarianism at T1. Mothers and fathers completed the Parenting Styles and Dimensions Questionnaire (Robinson, Mandleco, Olsen, & Hart, 2001). This questionnaire assesses authoritarian, authoritative, and permissive parenting styles. Respondents were asked to rate how similar their own behavior was to that described on a scale ranging from 1 (never) to 5 (always). One of the subscales measuring permissive parenting is a six-item subscale called “Lack of followthrough” (e.g., “States punishments to child and does not actually do them” and “Threatens child with punishment more often than giving it”) and was used as a measure of inconsistent discipline. Twenty items measure authoritarian practices (e.g., “Yells and shouts when child misbehaves,” “Grabs child when being disobedient,” and “When child asks why s/he has to conform, states: because I said so, or I am your parent and I want you to”). For inconsistent discipline, Cronbach’s alphas were .70 and .76 for mothers and fathers, respectively, and, for authoritarian parenting, alphas were .86 and .88, respectively. Prosocial behavior at T2. Teachers completed the Prosocial Behavior Questionnaire (Weir & Duveen, 1981). This measure includes 20 items listing different behaviors that are commonly observed and considered as prosocial by schoolteachers (e.g., “will invite bystanders to join in a game” and “comforts another child who is crying or upset”). The items were rated on a 3-point scale with 1 = doesn’t apply, 2 = applies somewhat, and 3 = certainly applies. Cronbach’s alpha for this scale was .93. Results

Preliminary Analyses All variables were normally distributed and met the assumptions for the relevant statistical analyses. The means, standard deviations, and range of participants’ responses for all predictor and outcome variables are presented in Table 1. Correlations among the main study variables are also

2.17

8. Father authoritarian parenting

*

p < .05.

p < .01.

Boys = 1; girls = 2. T = time.

10. Sex

a

.61

.51

--

2.21

7. Father inconsistent discipline

.32

.45

--

1.84

6. Mother authoritarian parenting

**

a

2.25

5. Mother inconsistent discipline

.41

.15

.85

.7

2.41

4. Prosocial behavior at T2

SD .76

12.9

1.68

3. Empathy at T2

9. Age at T2

1.18

2. Empathy at T1

M

2.71

1. Neuroticism

--

12–14

1–4

1–4

1–3

1–4

1–3

1–2

0–3

1–5

Range −.01

2 .20*

−.02

3

.27

.10

.02

4

−.04

.04

.01

.15

5

.30**

−.14

−.14

−.06

.01

6

7

.11

.02

.11

.01

.30**

−.13

Table 1. Distribution of and correlations among main study variables 8

--

.25*

.11

.04

−.15

.04

.06

−.05

9

.004

.07

.03

−.03

−.08

−.05

.09

.00

10

.07

−.08

.04

−.10

.10

.35**

.53**

.26*

.01

Parenting, Neuroticism, Empathy, and Prosocial Behavior 113

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provided in Table 1. Girls were higher in empathy than boys at both T1 and T2 and in teacher reports of prosocial behavior at T2. Mothers’ inconsistent discipline was positively correlated with mothers’ authoritarian parenting and with fathers’ inconsistent discipline. Fathers’ inconsistent discipline was correlated with fathers’ authoritarian parenting. Empathy at T1 and empathy at T2 were positively correlated.

Neuroticism as a Moderator of the Relation Between Parenting and Empathy We ran a series of simple moderation analyses by using PROCESS (Model 1) for SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) (Hayes, 2013; Preacher & Hayes, 2004). Separate analyses were conducted for mothers and fathers. Both parenting variables (parental inconsistent discipline and authoritarianism), empathy at T1, and neuroticism were centered prior to running the analyses. Sex, age, and empathy at T1 were entered as covariates. Given that bootstrapping cannot be conducted if data are missing, PROCESS eliminated cases of missing data by using listwise deletion. Inconsistent discipline. We hypothesized that parental inconsistent discipline at T1 would predict lower scores on adolescents’ empathy at T2, but only when adolescent neuroticism was low. A significant interaction of this form emerged for mothers but not for fathers (see Table 2). The interaction effect for mothers was probed by using the Johnson– Neyman technique (Hayes, 2013; Preacher, Curran, & Bauer, 2006) for regions of significance. This technique defines regions of significance representing the range of scores of the moderator in which the simple slope of y on x is significantly different from zero at a chosen level of significance ( ). In other words, the technique provides a region of values of the moderator (neuroticism’s original scale of 1–5) for which the conditional effect of an independent variable on an outcome is significant ( = .05 was used to identify significant effects in the present study). The Johnson–Neyman analysis revealed one region of significance: scores below 2.02 on neuroticism (see Figure 1). The 95% confidence interval for the conditional effect of maternal inconsistent discipline on adolescent empathy as a function of adolescent neuroticism did not include 0 at values of neuroticism below 2.02. Accordingly, the conditional effect of maternal inconsistent discipline on empathy was dependent on levels of adolescents’ neuroticism: Maternal inconsistent discipline negatively predicted adolescent empathy when adolescents scored low on neuroticism. Maternal discipline had no significant effect on adolescent empathy when adolescents scored high on neuroticism.

Parenting, Neuroticism, Empathy, and Prosocial Behavior Table 2.

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Moderation analyses for parental inconsistent discipline as a predictor of empathy at Time 2 Coefficient

SE

t

p

Mothers (N = 111) Empathy at T1

.012

.016

.760

.450

Age

−.001

.002

−.558

.578

Sex

.162

.028

**

5.75

.000

**

MID

−.017

.029

−.565

.573

N

−.0003

.017

−.015

.988

MID × N

.077

.040

2.01

.047

R2

.355**

.000

.030

.047

∆R

2

*

*

*

Fathers (N = 83) Empathy at T1

−.003

.018

−.151

.880

Age

−.002

.002

−1.31

.194

Sex

.186

.031

5.98

.000

FID

.026

.026

1.01

.318

N

−004

.019

−.231

.818

FID × N

.009

.038

.248

.805

R2

.377**

.000

.001

.805

∆R

2

**

Note. Coefficients are based on mean centered values. Change in R2 refers to the increase due to the interaction. MID = mother inconsistent discipline; N = neuroticism; FID = father inconsistent discipline; T = time. ** *

p < .01.

p < .05.

We also probed the interaction by using the more traditional approach of simple slope analysis (Aiken & West, 1991). Unstandardized beta weights were used to plot empathy levels at high and low levels of parental inconsistent discipline by using values that were 1 SD above and below the neuroticism mean (see Figure 2). The slope of each line was calculated and tested for significance. For adolescents who were low in neuroticism, maternal inconsistent discipline was negatively related to empathy ( = −.27, p = .04). In contrast, for high levels of neuroticism, maternal inconsistent discipline did not predict changes in empathy ( = .14, p = .19).

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Figure 1. The conditional effect of maternal inconsistent discipline at Time 1 on adolescent empathy at Time 2 as a function of adolescent’s neuroticism by using regions-of-significance approach. CI = confidence interval.

Authoritarianism. Consistent with our hypothesis, neither mothers’ nor fathers’ authoritarianism had significant effects at T1 on adolescent empathy at T2 at any level of adolescents’ neuroticism (see Table 3).

Neuroticism as a Moderator of the Relation Between Empathy and Prosocial Behavior To determine whether the empathy of adolescents who were high in neuroticism translated into teacher-reported prosocial behavior at T2, we again used simple moderation analysis in PROCESS. There was a significant interaction between neuroticism and empathy (see Table 4). Probing of the interaction by using the Johnson–Neyman technique revealed one region of significance: scores above 3.52 on neuroticism (see Figure 3). The 95% confidence interval for the conditional effect of empathy at T2 on prosocial behavior as a function of adolescent neuroticism did not include 0 at values of neuroticism above 3.52: Empathy at T2 was positively associated with adolescents’ prosocial behavior at T2 when they scored high in neuroticism, but there was no effect when adolescents scored low on neuroticism. Thus, under high levels


117

Figure 2. Neuroticism as moderator between maternal inconsistent discipline and empathy by using simple slope analysis. T2 = Time 2.

of fearfulness or neuroticism, empathy appeared to motivate prosocial behavior. If adolescents were experiencing personal distress, this did not prevent them from showing concern and consideration toward their peers. We also probed this interaction effect by using a simple slope analysis (Aiken & West, 1991). Unstandardized beta weights were used to plot prosocial behavior levels at high and low levels of empathy by using values that were 1 SD above and below the neuroticism mean (see Figure 4). The slope of each line was calculated and tested for significance. For those adolescents who were high in neuroticism, empathy was positively associated with prosocial behavior ( = .32, p = .047), whereas, for low levels of neuroticism, empathy did not predict prosocial behavior ( = −.05, p = .74). Discussion In this longitudinal study, we addressed the impact of neuroticism on the relation between features of parenting behavior and empathy displayed by adolescents. By and large, our hypotheses were confirmed.


118 Table 3.

Moderation analyses for parental authoritarianism as a predictor of empathy at Time 2 Coefficient

SE

t

p

Mothers (N = 111) Empathy at T1

.008

.017

.481

.632

Age

.000

.002

−.778

.439

Sex

.169**

.029

5.90

.000

MAP N

−.01

.042

−.300

.765

.001

.018

.041

.967

.053

.424

MAP × N

.022

R2

.328**

.000

.673

∆R2

.001

.673

Fathers (N = 83) Empathy at T1

−.002

Age

−.002

.018

−.105

.917

.002

−1.19

.238

5.91

.000

Sex

.186

.032

FAP

.021

.024

.878

.383

N

.001

.019

.006

.995

FAP × N

.037

.033

R2

.381**

∆R2

.011

**

1.10

.274 .000 .273

Note. Coefficients are based on mean-centered values. Change in R refers to the increase due to the interaction. MAP = mother authoritarian parenting; N = neuroticism; FAP = father authoritarian parenting; T = time. 2

**

p < .01.

Neuroticism as a Moderator of the Relation Between Parenting and Empathy Inconsistent discipline. Neuroticism is characterized by fearfulness and anxiety and therefore appears to have some relation to behavioral inhibition in younger children. Like Cornell and Frick (2007) regarding behavioral inhibition, we considered it as a moderator of the effect of inconsistent parental discipline on adolescents’ empathy. In accord with our prediction, we found a detrimental effect of mothers’, although not fathers’, inconsistent discipline on empathy in adolescents who were low in neuroticism but not on those who were high in neuroticism. This finding held for both boys

Parenting, Neuroticism, Empathy, and Prosocial Behavior Table 4.

119

Moderation analyses for empathy at Time 2 as a predictor of prosocial behavior at Time 2 (N = 86) Coefficient

SE

t

p

Age

−.006

.005

−1.33

.189

Sex

.165

.106

1.55

.126

Adolescent empathy at T2

.464

.349

1.33

.188

N

.017

.056

E×N

.659*

.318

R

.176

2

.307 2.07

.759 .042 .014

*

Note. Coefficients are based on mean-centered values. Change in R refers to the increase due to the interaction. N = neuroticism; E = empathy T2; T = time. 2

** *

p < .01.

p < .05.

Figure 3. The conditional effect of adolescent empathy at Time 2 on adolescent prosocial behavior at Time 2 as a function of adolescent’s neuroticism by using regions-of-significance approach. CI = confidence interval.

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Figure 4. Neuroticism as a moderator between empathy and adolescent prosocial behavior by using simple slope analysis. T2 = Time 2.

and girls. Under these particular conditions, then, low neuroticism appears to have made adolescents particularly vulnerable to inconsistent discipline at least in terms of its impact on their empathic capacity. We suggest this is the case because highly neurotic adolescents are sensitive to the possibility of punishment, even when it is inconsistently applied, and therefore relatively unaffected by this inconsistency (Lengua, 2008). In accord with this suggestion, Fisher and Blair (1998) and O’Brien and Frick (1996) found that adolescents with callous and unemotional traits (i.e., traits characterized by low levels of empathy and fear) were less sensitive to punishment cues in the face of a primed reward-oriented response set and less sensitive to emotionally distressing stimulus threats than were those who were low in callous and unemotional traits. The results of these studies, then, support the contention that sensitivity to discipline, even inconsistent discipline, is higher for those adolescents who are neurotic than for those who are not. Indeed, they accord with the argument that fearless children exposed to inconsistent discipline can turn into callous and unemotional adolescents who are less concerned and distressed by the impact of their behavior on others, as well as manipulative, because they have learned that negative consequences for antisocial behavior can be avoided (Frick, Cornell, Barry, Bodin, & Dane, 2003). Temperament valence as a determinant of moderation. Research on temperament by parenting interactions has focused primarily on the


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impact of maladaptive parenting on children with supposedly problematic temperaments (Bates & Pettit, 2015). The general finding is that children who are behaviorally inhibited, difficult, or have problems with selfcontrol, in comparison with those with more favorable temperaments, are disproportionately or even exclusively likely to be negatively affected by an environmental stressor such as harsh parenting. One exception to this model comes from early work by Kochanska (1995, 1997), which found that conscience development in fearless but not fearful children was affected by their attachment status. The present study and that by Cornell and Frick (2007) provide another exception, as adolescents who were low in neuroticism, presumably a positive temperament feature, were more likely to be adversely affected by inconsistent discipline than those who were high in neuroticism. Authoritarian parenting. Although neuroticism acted as a moderator of the relation between inconsistent parenting and empathy, it did not moderate the relation between authoritarian parenting and empathy. Thus, in addition to the specificity of relations between personality and child outcomes, there also appears to be specificity between forms of negative parenting and child outcomes. We suggest that inconsistent discipline makes it difficult for adolescents who are low in neuroticism to learn to be responsive to negative affect in others. Authoritarian parenting, on the other hand, sends very clear signals about negative affect in others, but the rejection and lack of sensitivity to the child’s feelings of such parenting may neutralize or cancel out the impact of this learning. Our results accord in part with those of Schaffer et al. (2009), who found a negative relation between students’ ratings of parents’ permissiveness (of which inconsistent discipline is an aspect) and empathy, but none for ratings of authoritarian parenting. Our findings replicate those reported by Cornell and Frick (2007), who also found a relation between mothers’ inconsistent discipline and empathy, but not between authoritarianism and empathy, for fearless preschoolers but not for fearful ones. Additionally, the present study, because it is longitudinal, provides greater justification for making inferences about direction of effects: Inconsistent discipline predicted empathy 2 years later after controlling for the latter’s initial levels. Thus, even into adolescence, and even using a different marker of fearfulness than Cornell and Frick’s, inconsistent discipline had an effect on adolescent’s empathic capacity only for adolescents who were fearless. It does seem somewhat puzzling that authoritarian parenting, with its emphasis on power, was not detrimental for adolescents who were high in neuroticism, particularly in light of the findings reported by Kochanska (1995) that fearful children benefit from gentle discipline and that strongly power-assertive

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discipline is counterproductive for them. It should be noted, however, that Kochanska’s measure of harsh discipline was mothers’ observed physical restraint, guidance, and enforcement in their interactions with their children. Mothers’ self-reports of strict or authoritarian discipline such as those employed in the present study did not, in fact, predict outcomes for fearful children in her study. The lack of effect of authoritarian parenting might also reflect that mothers in our study did not score very high on authoritarianism and that different results might have been obtained with a more authoritarian sample.

Differences Between Mothers and Fathers The lack of an effect of inconsistent discipline on adolescents’ empathy for fathers was quite clear. There are several possible reasons for this null finding. It may reflect that mothers are generally more intensely involved in parenting than fathers (Forehand & Nousiainen, 1993) and that the nature of their discipline therefore matters more. Or it may be that fathers are more reluctant than mothers to talk about emotions (Chaparro & Grusec, 2015; Dindia & Allen, 1992; Dolgin & Berndt, 1997), with such reluctance spilling over into discussions relevant to empathy. Finally, it is possible that fathers, by virtue of their greater dominance, may provoke more anxiety even in low-neurotic offspring than do mothers, and that these adolescents thereby are more responsive to paternal threats of punishment even if those threats are inconsistent. Whatever the reason, it is evident that more attention needs to be paid to the different ways in which mothers and fathers influence different child outcomes.

Neuroticism as a Moderator of the Relation Between Empathy and Prosocial Behavior Research on the relation between early child temperament and empathy suggests that levels of empathic distress in fearful children might be so great as to lead to personal distress, with personal distress promoting escape or self-soothing rather than assistance to others (Eisenberg, Fabes, & Spinrad, 2006). However, we found no evidence for this contention in our study. Empathy predicted high levels of prosocial behavior in highly neurotic adolescents, both boys and girls, as measured by their classroom behavior. It should be noted, however, that items on the Prosocial Behavior Questionnaire do not tap into highly distressing situations, and a measure involving items reflecting greater distress might yield different results.


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Unexpectedly, there was no relation between empathy and prosocial behavior for adolescents who were low in neuroticism. One of the characteristics of low neuroticism is a reduced proneness to experience guilt, and guilt has often been associated with increased prosocial behavior (Roos, Hodges, & Salmivalli, 2013). It may be that, although able to experience reasonable levels of empathy, individuals who are low in neuroticism are less likely to experience feelings of guilt when they fail to respond to the needs of others. Accordingly, reduced tendencies toward experiencing guilt might offset or neutralize the effect of empathy.

Limitations and Conclusions The present study has a number of limitations. The measure of adolescent’s neuroticism was collected only at T2, which raises the concern of an interaction composed of variables from the same time points. Nonetheless, it is well documented that self-reports of personality measures tend to remain stable over time. As an example, Pullman, Raudsepp, and Allik (2006) found that adolescents aged 12–18 years maintained the same reported level on any given personality trait over a 2-year period. Our sample, although diverse in ethnicity, was quite well educated, and different results might obtain with a less well-educated sample. The use of different measures of empathy across the two time points was not ideal. And, finally, a measure of prosocial behavior that involved higher levels of distress might have yielded a different result. In sum, however, the results of the present study do extend the findings of interactions between temperament/personality and parenting to an older age group than has usually been targeted. They point to the need for specificity in personality and parenting variables assessed, as well as the child outcome under consideration. They also suggest that closer attention needs to be paid to the different roles that may be played by mothers and fathers in the socialization process. Finally, they have implications for understanding how clinical problems related to callous and unemotional behavior may develop. References Aiken, L. S., & West, S. G. (1991). Multiple regression: Testing and interpreting interactions. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Bates, J. E., & Pettit, G. S. (2015). Temperament, parenting, and social development. In J. E. Grusec & P. D. Hastings (Eds.), Handbook of socialization: Theory and research (2nd ed., pp. 372–397). New York: Guilford Press.

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