The Relations of Parental Warmth and Positive Expressiveness to Children's Empathy-Related Responding and Social Functioning: A Longitudinal Study

• Published in: Child development Vol. 73; no. 3; pp. 893 - 915
• Main Authors: Zhou, Qing, Eisenberg, Nancy, Losoya, Sandra H., Fabes, Richard A., Reiser, Mark, Guthrie, Ivanna K., Murphy, Bridget C., Cumberland, Amanda J., Shepard, Stephanie A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Boston, USA and Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishers Inc 01-05-2002; Blackwell Publishers; Blackwell; Blackwell Publishing Ltd
• Subjects: Affection; Attachment Behavior; Biological and medical sciences; Case studies; Child; Child development; Children; Developmental psychology; Emotional Development; Emotional expression; Emotional states; Empathy; Facial Expression; Family relations; Family studies; Female; Follow-Up Studies; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Humans; Interpersonal Competence; Interpersonal Relationship; Male; Modeling; Parent Child Relationship; Parent Responsiveness; Parent Role; Parent-Child Relations; Parenting; Parents; Parents & parenting; Personality and Social Development; Positive affect; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Social Behavior; Social functioning; Social Perception; Social psychology; Socialization; Sympathy; Young Children; Human; Social environment; Parental behavior; Structural equation modeling; Emotion emotionality; Empathy; Parent child relation; Behavioral disorder; Social development; School age; Social behavior; Follow up study; Cross sectional study; Family environment; Social aptitude; Face; Child; Facial expression
• ISSN: 0009-3920; 1467-8624
• DOI: 10.1111/1467-8624.00446

This study examined the concurrent and cross-time relations of parental observed warmth and positive expressivity to children's situational facial and self-reported empathic responding, social competence, and externalizing problems in a sample of 180 elementary school children. Data was collected when the children were in second to fifth grades (age: M = 112.8 months), and again 2 years later. Cross-sectional and longitudinal structural equation models supported the hypothesis that parents' (mostly mothers') positive expressivity mediated the relation between parental warmth and children's empathy, and children's empathy mediated the relation between parental positive expressivity and children's social functioning. These relations persisted after controlling for prior levels of parenting and child characteristics. Moreover, concurrent and cross-time consistencies were found on measures of parenting, children's situational empathic responding, and social functioning.