The relations of children's dispositional empathy-related responding to their emotionality, regulation, and social functioning.

Eisenberg, Nancy; Fabes, Richard A.; Murphy, Bridget C.; Karbon, Mariss; Smith, Melanie C.; Maszk, Pat

doi:10.1037/0012-1649.32.2.195

Cited by 478 publications

(327 citation statements)

References 64 publications

(110 reference statements)

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“…Moreover, approximately half of the sample had children who were displaying clinical levels of externalizing and/or internalizing problem behaviors. Given previous work linking problem behaviors and negative emotionality (Eisenberg, Fabes, Murphy, Karbon, et al, 1996), it is possible that effortful control plays a more important function in this sample than in less clinical samples. Therefore, before replicated in more representative samples, caution should be exercised when generalizing these findings.…”

Section: Limitations Of the Studymentioning

confidence: 98%

Prediction of Children's Empathy-Related Responding From Their Effortful Control and Parents' Expressivity.

Valiente¹,

Eisenberg²,

Fabes³

et al. 2004

Developmental Psychology

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In this study, the linear and interactive relations of children's effortful control and parents' emotional expressivity to children's empathy-related responses were examined. Participants were 214 children, 4.5 to 8 years old. Children's effortful control was negatively related to their personal distress and was positively related to their sympathy. Parents' positive expressivity was marginally negatively related to children's personal distress and was marginally positively related to children's dispositional sympathy. Parents' negative expressivity was positively related to children's personal distress, but primarily at high levels of children's effortful control. Moreover, parents' negative expressivity was negatively related to children's situational sympathy at low levels of effortful control but was positively related to children's dispositional sympathy at high levels of effortful control. There were also quadratic relations between the measures of parents' expressivity and children's empathy-related responses.Empathy is believed to play an important role in fostering prosocial behavior and social competence Hoffman, 2000;Staub, 1979). Although a number of definitions of empathy exist, a representative definition is "an affective response that stems from the apprehension or comprehension of another's emotional state or condition, and that is identical or very similar to what the other person is feeling or would be expected to feel" (Eisenberg & Fabes, 1998, p. 702). For example, if a person witnesses a child feeling sad and consequently feels sad, that person is experiencing empathy. In addition, empathy is viewed as frequently associated with two related responses Eisenberg, Shea, Carlo, & Knight, 1991): sympathy and personal distress. Sympathy has been defined as an emotional response stemming from the apprehension of another's emotional state or condition, that is not the same as the other's state or condition but consists of feelings of sorrow or concern for the other . Sympathy is believed to frequently stem from empathy, although it may often be engendered by cognitive processes such as perspective taking. In contrast, personal distress is defined as a self-focused, aversive affective reaction to the apprehension of another's emotion (e.g., discomfort, anxiety; Batson, 1991)-a response that frequently may reflect empathic overarousal .Distinguishing between personal distress and sympathy is important because they are expected to relate differently to prosocial and social behaviors and may have different precursors. In fact, sympathy has been positively related to prosocial behavior whereas personal distress has been unrelated or negatively related (Batson, 1991;Eisenberg & Fabes, 1990. Moreover, sympathy has been linked to higher level moral reasoning whereas personal distress has been NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript negatively related or unrelated (e.g., Carlo, Eisenberg, & Knight, 1992;Eisenberg, Carlo, Murphy, & Van Court, 1995).Because of the ass...

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Section: Limitations Of the Studymentioning

confidence: 98%

Prediction of Children's Empathy-Related Responding From Their Effortful Control and Parents' Expressivity.

Valiente¹,

Eisenberg²,

Fabes³

et al. 2004

Developmental Psychology

Self Cite

143

122

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…In fact, we are aware of no findings linking deficient autonomic responding to deficits in empathy observed during emotion induction using films. In studies where empathy has been linked with autonomic responding among children, the relation has usually been correlational and indirect (e.g., boys with DBDs have generalized low autonomic arousal and exhibit limited empathy; Eisenberg et al, 1996). Moreover, although Liew et al (2003) did measure skin conductance and heart rate, linking lower reactivity in each to less empathy, this study (a) was conducted with a normative sample and (b) linked ratings of empathy to autonomic reactivity to static facial expressions of emotion (slides).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dissociation of sad facial expressions and autonomic nervous system responding in boys with disruptive behavior disorders

2007

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Although deficiencies in emotional responding have been linked to externalizing behaviors in children, little is known about how discrete response systems (e.g., expressive, physiological) are coordinated during emotional challenge among these youth. We examined time-linked correspondence of sad facial expressions and autonomic reactivity during an empathy-eliciting task among boys with disruptive behavior disorders (n = 31) and controls (n = 23). For controls, sad facial expressions were associated with reduced sympathetic (lower skin conductance level, lengthened cardiac preejection period [PEP]) and increased parasympathetic (higher respiratory sinus arrhythmia [RSA]) activity. In contrast, no correspondence between facial expressions and autonomic reactivity was observed among boys with conduct problems. Furthermore, low correspondence between facial expressions and PEP predicted externalizing symptom severity, whereas low correspondence between facial expressions and RSA predicted internalizing symptom severity. KeywordsConduct problems; Disruptive behavior; Facial expression; Sadness; Autonomic reactivity Conduct disorder (CD) and oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), jointly labeled as disruptive behavior disorders (DBDs) in the DSM-IV-TR (American Psychiatric Association, 2000), are among the most common mental health problems facing youth (Achenbach & Howell, 1993;Knitzer, Steinberg, & Fleisch, 1991). There is now a growing body of literature suggesting that children and adolescents with DBDs have difficulties with several domains of empathic responding, including emotional processing and self-appraisals of emotional experiences (de Wied, Goudena, & Matthys, 2005;Douglas & Strayer, 1996;Herpertz et al., 2005;Strand & Nowicki, 1999). However, other components of empathic responding such as displays of sad facial expressions and autonomic reactivity have only begun to receive empirical attention (Blair, 1999;de Wied et al., 2005;Douglas & Strayer, 1996;Herpertz et al., 2005).Functionalist theories of emotion suggests that the synchronization of emotional response systems plays a critical role in emotional health and that desynchronization contributes to the emergence and maintenance of psychopathology (see Ekman, 1992;Kring, Kerr, Smith, & Neale, 1993;Levenson, 1994;Mauss, Levenson, McCarter, Wilhelm, & Gross, 2005;Sloan, Strauss, Quirk, & Sajatovic, 1997). According to this perspective, as emotions unfold over time, the coordination of emotional appraisal, expressive behavior, and physiological responses should improve the reliability and precision of emotion cues and promote efficient behavioral and social responses (Levenson, 1994 (Feldman-Barrett, 2006), with some authors finding low to moderate correlations between experiential, behavioral, and physiological response domains (Buck, 1977;Gross & Levenson, 1993,1997Kettunen, Ravaja, Näätänen, Keltikangas-Jarvinen, 2000;Lanzetta, Cartwright-Smith, & Kleck, 1976;Mauss et al., 2005), others reporting discrepancies in the direction of effects (Notar...

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Section: Agreeableness As Effortful Controlmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…First, the construct of effortful control is broader than that of anger-control, encouraging a more extensive conceptualization of agreeableness as self-regulation. As such, agreeableness may be associated with the selfregulation of forms of negative emotionality other than anger, including anxiety and depression (Eisenberg et al, 1996).Second, it has been suggested that effortful control is particularly important among children with temperamental tendencies toward negative affect, presumably a precursor of neuroticism (Ahadi & Rothbart, 1994;Eisenberg, Fabes, Guthrie, & Reiser, 2000;Nigg, 2006). In the developmental literature, a frequent finding is that, among children high in negative emotionality, those high in effortful control are less vulnerable to mood-disordered outcomes (e.g., Eisenberg et al, 2000; see Nigg, 2006).…”

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confidence: 99%

Agreeableness and the self-regulation of negative affect: Findings involving the neuroticism/somatic distress relationship

Ode

Robinson

2007

Personality and Individual Differences

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In the temperament literature, agreeableness has been theoretically linked to effortful control. Further, research in this area has suggested that effortful control may play a broad role in moderating temperament-based tendencies toward negative affect. The present three studies, involving a total of 300 undergraduate participants, sought to extend this perspective to the adult literature by examining potential interactions between agreeableness and neuroticism in predicting reported somatic symptoms. Although such symptoms have been linked to neuroticism, they are not characteristic of the interpersonal concerns linked to agreeableness. Nevertheless, all studies found that agreeableness and neuroticism interacted to predict somatic symptoms such that high levels of agreeableness decoupled the relationship between neuroticism and somatic distress. These findings indicate a broad role for agreeableness in the self-regulation of neuroticism-linked distress. KeywordsAgreeableness; Neuroticism; Somatic Symptoms; Self-Regulation; Effortful Control Agreeableness is often viewed in terms of its interpersonal correlates. Experience-sampling studies have found that, in comparison to disagreeable individuals, agreeable individuals generally engage in less quarrelsome behavior and more cooperative behavior in daily life (Moskowitz, 1994). In terms of the social cognitive basis of agreeableness, this trait dimension has been associated with less perceived interpersonal conflict in laboratory interaction paradigms (Graziano, Jensen-Campbell, & Hair, 1996) and agreeable individuals exhibit a preference for more socially adaptive modes of conflict resolution (Graziano et al., 1996;Jensen-Campbell & Graziano, 2001).In addition, we suggest that agreeableness may also tap broad tendencies toward effortful control in domains that are less tied to interpersonal outcomes. Consistent with this perspective, Tangney, Baumeister, and Boone (2004) report a relationship between agreeableness and a dispositional self-control measure assessing the ability to override intrapsychic urges, such as those related to overeating or laziness. Furthermore, Jensen-Campbell et al. (2002) found that agreeableness was associated with smaller Stroop-interference effects, suggesting superior abilities to inhibit cognitive conflicts. These findings, although modest in number, areCorrespondence can be sent to Scott Ode, Psychology Department, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND 58105. Internet correspondence can be sent to E-mail: Scott.Ode@ndsu.edu (phone: 701-231-5486; fax: 701-231-8426). Publisher's Disclaimer: This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final citable form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers ...

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The relations of children's dispositional empathy-related responding to their emotionality, regulation, and social functioning.

Cited by 478 publications

References 64 publications

Prediction of Children's Empathy-Related Responding From Their Effortful Control and Parents' Expressivity.

Prediction of Children's Empathy-Related Responding From Their Effortful Control and Parents' Expressivity.

Dissociation of sad facial expressions and autonomic nervous system responding in boys with disruptive behavior disorders

Agreeableness and the self-regulation of negative affect: Findings involving the neuroticism/somatic distress relationship

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