A 25-year Study Reveals How Empathy Is Passed from Parents to Teens to Their Future Children

Jessica A. Stern wrote . . . . . . . . .

Our new research shows that parents who express empathy toward their teenagers may give teens a head start in developing the skill themselves. In addition, adolescents who show empathy and support toward their friends are more likely to become supportive parents, which may foster empathy in their own offspring.

How we did our work

The KLIFF/VIDA study at the University of Virginia has tracked 184 adolescents for more than 25 years: from age 13 well into their 30s.

Starting in 1998, teens came to the university every year with their parents and closest friend, and a team of researchers recorded videos of their conversations. Researchers observed how much empathy the mother showed to her 13-year-old when her teen needed help with a problem. We measured empathy by rating how present and engaged mothers were in the conversation, whether they had an accurate understanding of their teen’s problem, and how much help and emotional support they offered.

Then, each year until teens were 19 years old, we observed whether teens showed those same types of empathic behaviors toward their close friends.

A decade later, when some of those same teens were starting to have children of their own, we surveyed them about their own parenting. We also asked them about their young children’s empathy. For example, parents rated how often their child “tries to understand how others feel” and “tries to comfort others.”

We found that the more empathic a mother was toward her teenager at age 13, the more empathic the teen was toward their close friends across the adolescent years. Among teens who later had kids themselves, the ones who had shown more empathy for close friends as adolescents became more supportive parents as adults. In turn, these parents’ supportive responses to their children’s distress were associated with reports of their young children’s empathy.

Why it matters

The ability to empathize with other people in adolescence is a critical skill for maintaining good relationships, resolving conflict, preventing violent crime and having good communication skills and more satisfying relationships as an adult.

Adults want teens to develop good social skills and moral character, but simply telling them to be kind doesn’t always work. Our findings suggest that if parents hope to raise empathic teens, it may be helpful to give them firsthand experiences of being understood and supported.

But teens also need opportunities to practice and refine these skills with their peers. Adolescent friendships may be an essential “training ground” for teens to learn social skills such as empathy, how to respond effectively to other people’s suffering, and supportive caregiving abilities that they can put to use as parents. Our lab’s most recent paper presents some of the first evidence that having supportive teenage friendships matters for future parenting.

What’s next

We’re continuing to follow these participants to understand how their experiences with parents and peers during adolescence might play a role in how the next generation develops. We’re also curious to understand what factors might interrupt intergenerational cycles of low empathy, aggression and harsh parenting. For example, it’s possible that having supportive friends could compensate for a lack of empathy experienced from one’s family.

While it’s true that you can’t choose your family, you can choose your friends. Empowering teens to choose friendships characterized by mutual understanding and support could have long-term ripple effects for the next generation.

Source : The Conversation

Research Shows the Role Empathy May Play in Music

Can people who understand the emotions of others better interpret emotions conveyed through music? A new study by an international team of researchers suggests the abilities are linked.

The study’s results provide a foundation for future research that could test the impact of socially engaged music listening on social cognitive ability, and whether listening to music can be added to therapeutic techniques used in social skills training for individuals with autism spectrum disorders or schizophrenia.

The findings were published recently in Emotion, a scientific journal of the American Psychological Association.

The study was led by Benjamin A. Tabak, assistant professor of psychology and director of the Social and Clinical Neuroscience Lab (SCN) at SMU (Southern Methodist University) and Zachary Wallmark, assistant professor of musicology and affiliated faculty at the Center for Translational Neuroscience at the University of Oregon.

“Empathy is most often thought of in the context of social interactions, but there are many other forms of social communication, including music,” Tabak said. “Music can convey meaning and emotion and also elicit emotional responses, but the mechanisms responsible for its emotional power are poorly understood.”

Tabak and his colleagues wanted to test their theory about empathy and music. For the purposes of this study, they measured the ability to correctly understand others’ thoughts and feelings (empathic accuracy) and the extent to which one feels the emotions that another feels (affect sharing).

“We thought it would be interesting to study whether people who more accurately understand others’ thoughts and feelings might also be more accurate in understanding what musicians are intending to convey through music,” Tabak said. “Similarly, we wanted to know whether people who tend to feel the emotions that others are experiencing also tend to feel the emotions conveyed through music.”

The initial set of findings found support for both hypotheses. In particular, the results suggest that empathic accuracy as a skill extends beyond interpersonal interactions into music. Researchers hope these results will provide a foundation for future studies regarding the impact active, engaged music listening may have on improving social cognition.

Tabak and Wallmark believe that the study provides tentative support for the theory that music is first and foremost a social behavior that evolved to help individuals connect with others and better understand and manage their social environment.

“This matters on several levels, including the potential to develop new music-based interventions that may assist individuals with difficulties in understanding how others think and feel,” Tabak added.

Tabak pointed to the interdisciplinary approach he and his colleagues used during their study as a template for future research projects in this area. In addition to Tabak and Wallmark, whose scholarly work falls in psychology and musicology, respectively, the research team also included two statisticians and another psychologist with expertise in social cognition in schizophrenia.

“When we came up with this idea several years ago at a coffee shop in Dallas, researchers had only conducted studies that indirectly addressed these research questions, few of the previous studies had included large samples, and none had included a replication study,” Tabak said.

“We also hope that our work will highlight the value of conducting interdisciplinary research that spans the sciences and humanities,” he added. “Work like this, that takes a well-known psychological construct like empathy and examines it in an unconventional way by asking what people think a musical composer is trying to convey through a piece of music, might propel others to ‘think outside of the box’ and ultimately gain a greater understanding of a process though interdisciplinary collaboration,” he said.

Source: Southern Methodist University