Relationships between Parental Socialization Styles, Empathy and Connectedness with Nature: Their Implications in Environmentalism

Abstract

Parents exert a strong influence on several adjustment outcomes. However, little is known about their influence on adolescents’ connectedness with the environment. This study examined the relationships between parenting styles, empathy and connectedness with the environment. The two-dimensional socialization model was used with four resulting styles: Indulgent, authoritative, neglectful and authoritarian. The sample comprised 797 adolescents (52.7% girls) from six public secondary schools who were aged between 12 and 16 years (M = 13.94, SD = 1.28). The results showed significant relationships between parental socialization styles, empathy and connectedness with nature. It was also observed that adolescents from indulgent and authoritative families showed higher levels of empathy and connectedness with the environment than adolescents raised by authoritarian and neglectful parents, with males from such families consistently presenting the lowest levels of empathy and connectedness, which was not the case among women. Additionally, women, regardless of the parental style in which they had been educated, showed greater cognitive and emotional empathy with the natural environment, while adolescents raised in indulgent and authoritative families displayed higher levels of empathy and connectedness than those with authoritarian and neglectful parents. These results suggest that indulgent and authoritative styles are stronger enablers of empathy and connectedness with nature.

Parental Socialization, Social Anxiety, and School Victimization: A Mediation Model

“…Another aspect of demonstrated importance for adolescent psychosocial adjustment is parental socialization [29,30]. Traditionally, the relationship between parenting style and child adjustment has been analyzed following a two-dimensional orthogonal model of parental socialization, labeled as involvement/acceptance and strictness/imposition [31].…”

Associations of Experienced Parenting Style and Empathy Among Male Offenders in China

“…This dysfunction may cause elevated psychopathic traits, which may lead to antisocial or violent behaviors [5]. Parenting styles have proven to be a very important factor in the family of origin environment [6][7][8].…”

“…The presence of good parenting styles in the family of origin is very important in preventing juvenile delinquency [9]. At present, the main problems in the parenting style of families are the degree of supervision and discipline of parents and whether they can give enough care and encouragement to their children [7]. At the same time, many studies have shown that a positive parent-adolescent relationship protects adolescents against delinquency [10].…”

“…Many studies have also shown that a poor family of origin environment in uences the empathy of adults. Improper parenting of preadolescents is an important factor affecting empathy in adulthood [7,17,18]. Meanwhile, some studies have pointed out that parenting style may differentially in uence cognitive and affective empathy, which further categorizes empathy [19][20][21].…”

“…Several studies have found that exposure to different parenting styles during adolescence or young adulthood have different effects on an individual's empathy [34,35]. One study also examined the relationships between parenting styles, empathy and connectedness with the environment and found that indulgent and authoritative styles were stronger enablers of empathy and connectedness with nature [7]. Previous studies have discussed the in uences of control factors in parenting style on empathy among offenders [36,37].…”