How Parental Support Affects Latina Girls During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Empathic Accuracy and Posttraumatic Growth Effects on Empathy and Altruistic Sharing
Abstract
Abstract. The current study focuses on a sample of low- to middle-income school-age Latina girls and their parents and examines how children’s distress proneness interacts with parental empathic accuracy and posttraumatic growth in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic to predict children’s empathy and prosocial behavior toward unknown others. Approximately 2–3 months into state-mandated stay-at-home orders, 55 parent–daughter dyads were recruited to participate in this four-session longitudinal study. To assess distress proneness, daughters (ages 8–13 years, 100% Latina) identified their degree of distress in response to pandemic-related stressors. Concurrently, their parents reported how they thought their children would respond to these same pandemic-related stressors, which assessed parental empathic accuracy. Parents also completed an adapted version of the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory, which assessed perceived positive outcomes of the COVID-19 pandemic. Upon study completion, a behavioral measure of children’s empathic and prosocial behaviors was collected. Parental empathic accuracy interacted with children’s distress proneness to positively predict children’s affective empathy, such that children’s distress proneness predicted affective empathy at high and mean, but not low, levels of parental empathic accuracy. In a separate analysis, parental posttraumatic growth interacted with children’s distress proneness to positively predict children’s altruistic sharing behavior, such that children’s distress proneness predicted altruistic sharing behavior only at high, but not mean or low, levels of parental posttraumatic growth. The results of this study highlight how positive parental socialization and understanding of children’s tendencies toward distress are associated with children’s empathic and prosocial behaviors, particularly during major global crises.
The COVID-19 pandemic has created grave psychosocial stressors such as social isolation, uncertainty, and financial hardship known to adversely influence mental health (Pancani et al., 2021; Usher et al., 2020; Wilson et al., 2020; Witteveen & Velthorst, 2020; Zhuo et al., 2021). In particular, children of color have been disproportionately affected by the vast societal changes triggered by the pandemic (Bibbins-Domingo, 2020). At the same time, the world has also witnessed many acts of empathy, generosity, and kindness toward those in need (McDermott, 2020; Smith, 2020). Past research illustrates that although distress triggered by crisis can, at times, lead to self-preservation and self-focus in the presence of others’ misfortune, it can, at other times, motivate behaviors aimed at understanding and helping those others, such as by sharing or donating resources (Eisenberg & Fabes, 1992; Li et al., 2013). Few studies have investigated the role parents play in influencing these divergent socioemotional responses in their children, particularly in ethnically diverse samples. To address this gap, the current short-term longitudinal study focused on a sample of low- to middle-income school-age Latina girls living in the United States, examining whether individual differences in children’s distress proneness interacted with parental empathic accuracy and parental posttraumatic growth in supporting children’s affective empathy and altruistic sharing with unknown peers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
COVID-19 as a Crisis
Globally, the COVID-19 pandemic has left hundreds of millions of people at risk for serious illness or death (Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center, 2020). Families have been isolated or quarantined in their homes (Brooks et al., 2020), all while burdened by loss of loved ones, movement restrictions, working remotely, being furloughed, or losing jobs entirely. Parents have also faced the daunting task of caring for children who have been out of school or childcare without access to group activities (Cluver et al., 2020). For many parents, just keeping children busy and safe at home while dealing with online education demands has been an immense challenge, and for those living in low-income and crowded households, such challenges have been exacerbated (Patel et al., 2020). Communities of color, in particular, are more likely to be exposed to the virus because they are often overrepresented in the low-wage, essential workforce at the front lines (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2020). These communities are also more susceptible to severe forms of COVID-19 due, in part, to underlying health conditions known to be associated with COVID-19 mortality (Bibbins-Domingo, 2020). Indeed, Latinos have been overrepresented among cases of and deaths from COVID-19, both nationally and in many of the areas hardest hit by the pandemic (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2020). Together, these data highlight how preexisting inequities are at the root of the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on Latinos and other minoritized groups in the United States. Exposure to compounding social inequities is a well-established mental health liability for low-income communities and people of color, compromising parents’ ability to sustain emotional regulation (Gavidia-Payne et al., 2015) and provide a buffer for youth who are already at elevated risk of trauma-related disorders compared to adults (McLaughlin et al., 2013).
Collectively, the degree to which families have been impacted by direct exposure to COVID-19 (e.g., contracting the virus) and related secondary stressors (e.g., personal or economic losses, social distancing) has created grave suffering and distress (Twenge & Joiner, 2020), particularly among Latino families. Yet, despite accumulating evidence that traumatic experiences such as exposure to a global pandemic can compromise multilevel functioning, a nascent literature has also chronicled examples of growth in the face of individual and collective adversity (Tedeschi & Calhoun, 2004). Similarly, laboratory studies have shown that experimentally inducing stress can sometimes promote affective empathy and increase prosocial behavior in subsequent economic exchanges (von Dawans et al., 2012, 2019; Takahashi et al., 2007; Tomova et al., 2017) or hypothetical moral scenarios (Singer et al., 2017). To date, little empirical work has examined positive outcomes such as empathy and other prosocial behaviors in the wake of the COVID-19 global crisis. Understanding factors associated with positive outcomes for families facing hardship may facilitate efforts aimed at fostering community resilience in the context of both COVID-19 and other global health and economic crises.
Children’s Responses to Stress
A crisis, by definition, is a time of intense difficulty, trouble, or danger. It is, thus, unsurprising that times of crisis such as COVID-19 can trigger significant distress among affected individuals and lead to self-protection and hoarding of resources (Oosterhoff & Palmer, 2020; Tse et al., 2021). However, times of crisis can also provide people with opportunities to engage in prosocial action through supporting one another and helping those in need (Buchanan & Preston, 2014; Li et al., 2013), as has been on display in news headlines spotlighting those who have donated their time, food, and protective equipment to unknown strangers in need.
Because the neural networks central to the regulation of stress responsivity undergo extensive development throughout childhood and adolescence (Decety & Michalska, 2010; Gogtay et al., 2004; Sheng et al., 2021; Tottenham & Gabard-Durnam, 2017), children, in particular, may be uniquely affected by times of crisis. Theoretical and empirical contributions contend that overarousal in the context of distressing events promotes children’s self-focus and a desire to alleviate their own, but not others’, negative emotions (Eisenberg et al., 2006, 2004; Eisenberg & Fabes, 1992). Youth exposed to prolonged periods of crisis sometimes exhibit difficulties in decoding and understanding others’ emotions, which may inhibit or delay the development of sophisticated emotion awareness abilities (Fries & Pollak, 2004; Pollak et al., 2000) and subsequent prosocial behaviors. Attenuated emotion awareness can manifest as hypervigilance to threat, leading crisis-exposed children to overattend to cues of anger at the expense of other less salient emotions, including those signaling distress or sadness (Pollak et al., 2001). Conversely, optimal levels of arousal promote an other-focus and enable empathy and prosocial behavior toward those in need (Batson & Powell, 2003). In other words, if a child is prone to intense negative emotions during a time of crisis and is not well regulated, they tend to experience overarousal and concomitant personal distress. A child who is prone to more moderate levels of emotion and is well regulated tends to be less self-focused, more other-directed, and consequently more able and motivated to comprehend and alleviate others’ negative emotions (Eisenberg et al., 1996a).
The COVID-19 pandemic has afforded the opportunity to study associations between children’s distress proneness and other-oriented emotions and behaviors in a real-life situation. Informed by neuroimaging evidence of increased affect sharing following stress induction (Tomova et al., 2017), we tested associations between children’s distress proneness and affective empathy, defined as the ability to share the emotions of others (Eisenberg et al., 1996b). As the pandemic has evoked feelings of scarcity and worry about limited access to goods, we also tested associations between children’s distress proneness and altruistic sharing or giving up a limited resource to benefit others at personal cost (Brownell et al., 2009). Altruistic sharing is particularly challenging for children as it requires the ability to overcome an egocentric desire to monopolize resources (Dunfield, 2014). Finally, we examined whether parental behaviors moderated any observed associations, as we describe in the section below. Our sample consisted of Latina girls in middle childhood, a developmental period when children are more acutely attuned to another’s state than their own compared with younger children (Geangu et al., 2011; Nichols et al., 2009). During this period, the continued development of top-down regulatory capacities (e.g., executive function, emotion regulation, language) aids in the modulation of personal distress and forms the basis of more adaptive empathic responses (Decety & Michalska, 2010), including prosocial behaviors such as altruistic sharing (Decety & Meyer, 2008; Decety & Svetlova, 2012; Li et al., 2013). Engaging in altruistic sharing during the pandemic may also shape children’s sense of connection and developing views of society in ways that could foster stronger community ties and impact emotional well-being. For these reasons, middle childhood represents a particularly important developmental period in which to examine distress proneness and empathy-related responding.
The Role Parents Play in Shaping Children’s Understanding of Others
Aspects of parental functioning promote children’s adaptation to negative emotionally evocative events (Bryant, 1987; Eisenberg et al., 1991, 1996a; Mullins et al., 2021). Children who receive discouraging, rather than supportive, reactions from parents when they express negative emotions gradually learn to hide these emotions, while still becoming physiologically aroused due to associations with parental sanctions (Buck, 1984). Conversely, children learn to express distress without shame and respond empathically toward others if their parents react openly with sympathy and nurturance (Tomkins, 1963). As children are heavily reliant on adult socializing agents to manage distress and make sense of crises, elucidating means by which parents can encourage children’s adaptive responding to their own and others’ negative emotions during a crisis may help identify potential intervention targets. Here, we explored effects of parental empathic accuracy and parental posttraumatic growth on children’s affective empathy and altruistic sharing during an emotionally evocative pandemic-related event.
Effects of Parental Empathic Accuracy on Children’s Empathy
How children cope with their negative emotions when responding to others in need depends in part on their experiences with sensitive, empathic caregiving (Eisenberg, 1998; Eisenberg et al., 1996a, 1998, 1999; Fabes et al., 2001, 2002). Parental empathy promotes secure parent–child relationships (Stern et al., 2015), affecting children's own empathy and prosocial behavior via the regulation of distress (Gross et al., 2017; Shaver et al., 2019; Stern & Cassidy, 2018). Parents who exhibit greater empathic accuracy, the cognitive ability to accurately infer what someone else is thinking or feeling (Ickes, 1993), are better positioned to respond appropriately to distress (Vinik et al., 2011) while simultaneously modeling comforting and coping behavior (Fabes et al., 2001; Roberts & Strayer, 1987). In one study testing associations between children’s empathy and two facets of maternal empathic accuracy: (1) mothers’ knowledge of events their children would find more distressing and (2) mothers’ knowledge of events their children would find less distressing, mothers’ accuracy about less distressing events positively predicted children’s affective empathy (Vinik et al., 2011). Although mothers’ accuracy for more distressing events was unrelated to children’s empathy, researchers stipulated that mothers who recognize when their children are distressed (or are about to become distressed) are more likely to use their knowledge to talk to their children about emotions. Talking about emotional experiences may aid children in developing a body of knowledge about emotional expressions, situations, and causes that can help them correctly identify their own emotions and understand their origins (Brown & Dunn, 1996; Denham et al., 1994; Taumoepeau & Ruffman, 2008). This, in turn, may facilitate children’s ability to identify the negative emotions of others and respond with greater empathy. To our knowledge, no study to date has characterized the associations between maternal empathic accuracy and children’s empathy and prosocial behaviors during the global COVID-19 pandemic.
Effects of Parental Posttraumatic Growth on Children’s Prosocial Behavior
Alongside empathic accuracy, parents’ own reactions to distress may be particularly germane to emergent coping responses in children (Cohen et al., 2006). Parental posttraumatic growth, or growth thought to result from personal struggle in the aftermath of trauma, is one such response that has featured prominently in efforts to understand thriving in the wake of adversity (Tedeschi & Calhoun, 2004). Expanding broader notions of resilience, which emphasize the expression of competent adaptation in contexts of adversity (Masten, 2001; Masten & Cicchetti, 2016), posttraumatic growth and related notions, such as adversarial growth (Linley & Joseph, 2004), characterize positive psychological changes that can occur as a result of coping with trauma. These changes might include (but are not limited to) an increased sense of personal strength and appreciation for life, a greater tendency to consider new possibilities, a richer spiritual life, and more meaningful relationships with others (Shakespeare-Finch et al., 2013). Given the positive interpersonal impacts encompassed by these definitions, posttraumatic growth may potentially build family resources and support positive social behaviors in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior research examining how individuals negotiate the aftermath of crises and trauma has demonstrated that posttraumatic growth may contribute to actions intended to help or benefit others (i.e., prosocial behavior; Batson & Powell, 2003) such as increased willingness to help others physically and emotionally and an increased tendency to be more altruistic toward those in need (El-Gabalawy, 2010; El Gabalawy et al., 2020; Shakespeare-Finch & Barrington, 2012). Posttraumatic growth has also been observed to prompt other-oriented prosocial characteristics such as moral reasoning, empathy, helpfulness, perspective taking, and motivation to volunteer (El-Gabalawy, 2010). The majority of available evidence, however, has focused on within-individual associations, examining how a person’s sense of posttraumatic growth sometimes begets their own prosocial tendencies. Less is known about these associations between individuals. In one notable exception, parental self-reported posttraumatic growth in families directly exposed to the 2004 tsunami in Thailand was a significant predictor of posttraumatic growth in their children (Hafstad et al., 2010). Whether parental posttraumatic growth also influences children’s prosocial tendencies remains unexplored and was the focus of the current study. Given well-established links between parental and child functioning following crises and trauma (Norris et al., 2002; Scheeringa & Zeanah, 2001), we examined whether parents’ own sense of posttraumatic growth during the COVID-19 crisis was reflected in their children’s other-oriented behavioral responses to the crisis. We note that because the present study was conducted in the midst of the pandemic, our examination of posttraumatic growth targeted ongoing coping and growth rather than parental functioning in the aftermath of a discrete traumatic event.
Study Overview
Individual differences in emotional responsivity are known to interact with caregiving experiences in shaping children’s functioning (Belsky & Pluess, 2009; Pluess & Belsky, 2010). Under this notion, children who exhibit elevated responsivity to pandemic-related stressors, may plausibly be more responsive to parental empathic accuracy and posttraumatic growth and consequently display higher levels of affective empathy and altruistic sharing. The current study examined both independent and interactive associations of children’s temperamental proneness to distress and parenting behaviors on children’s understanding of others in moments of crisis. Specifically, we tested the effect of children’s self- and parent-reported distress proneness in conjunction with parental empathic accuracy and posttraumatic growth on children’s affective empathy and altruistic sharing behavior.
Our goals were three-fold. We tested whether children’s distress proneness (1) predicted their affective empathy and altruistic sharing behavior toward an unknown peer, (2) interacted with parental empathic accuracy to predict children’s affective empathy, and (3) interacted with parental posttraumatic growth to predict children’s altruistic sharing behavior. Affective empathy and altruistic sharing behavior assessments consisted of children’s self-reported empathy toward an ostensible peer and a generosity task toward the same peer. We hypothesized that parental empathic accuracy and posttraumatic growth would moderate the relationship between children’s distress proneness and children’s affective empathy and altruistic sharing behavior such that children’s distress proneness would positively predict affective empathy and altruistic sharing behavior among children whose parents scored high on empathic accuracy and posttraumatic growth and would inversely predict children’s affective empathy and altruistic sharing behavior among children whose parents scored low on empathic accuracy and posttraumatic growth.
We complement and extend prior work in several ways. First, we study a sample that includes Latino families with daughters aged 8–13 years. This sample is primarily Mexican-origin by self-identification, which extends previous studies that have focused primarily on European American samples. Cultures differentially value banding together in the face of distress versus caring for oneself (Trubisky et al., 1991), which may impact empathic orientation following a crisis. Recent investigations posit that cultural emphasis on personal achievement can hinder collective action aimed at mitigating the broader adverse effects of crises, including COVID-19 (Maaravi et al., 2021). On the other hand, cultural orientation toward interdependence, valued by Latino families (Zhou et al., 2021), may promote a concern with the needs of the group (Trubisky et al., 1991) and enhance other-oriented behaviors during COVID-19, such as mask-wearing (Lu et al., 2021). Furthermore, although previous work in heterogeneous samples has documented gender-based developmental differences in children’s empathy and prosocial behavior (Eisenberg et al., 1989a; 1989b; Van der Graaff et al., 2014; but see Michalska et al., 2013), our focus on Latina girls enables exploration of potential within-group differences in an understudied population. Second, we utilize a short-term longitudinal design, which informs potential directional effects of parenting behaviors on children’s understanding of others in the context of distressing events. Third, we examine these factors during the COVID-19 pandemic, a global health and economic crisis that has triggered widespread psychosocial stress and has disproportionately impacted children from under-resourced communities of color.
Methods
Participants
Participants included 55 Latina girls (Mage = 10.49, SD = 1.37, range = 7–13 years, 100% born in the United States) and their primary caregivers (53 mothers, two fathers, Mage = 37.04, SD = 5.53, range = 26–47 years, 65.5% born in the United States, 20.0% born in Mexico, 3.6% born elsewhere, 10.9% missing) residing in the Inland Empire Region of Southern California. Parent–daughter dyads were recruited to participate in a short-term longitudinal study during the early months of the pandemic (May 2020 through September 2020). Data collection spanned four time points, each approximately two weeks apart (M = 2.64, SD = 1.41). Participants were recruited from a larger ongoing longitudinal study in the laboratory, via a university’s shared database of child participants, and if they agreed to be contacted for future studies during prior participation in other laboratory studies at the university. Participant eligibility was determined by phone screening with a parent. Children were eligible for participation if they were fluent in English, age 8–13 years, self-identified as Latina, and reported no learning disabilities. Due to a recruitment error, one child participant was 7 years old at study entry but was 8 years old by study completion. As such, her data were retained in analyses. Upon study completion, one parent participant disclosed that her participating child had a learning disability. As such, the dyad’s data were excluded from analyses.
Of the 55 eligible dyads who participated in Session 1, 50 returned for Session 2, 44 returned for Session 3, and 46 returned for Session 4. Of the 14 dyads who did not return for one or more visits, 4 chose to withdraw from the study and 10 did not respond to calls. Participants who returned for all of their visits did not differ from participants who missed one or more visits as to child age, t(53), p = .692, annual household income, t(48), p = .119, child self-reported pandemic-related distress, t(53), p = .463, child parent-reported pandemic-related distress, t(52), p = .114, or parent self-reported pandemic-related distress, t(52), p = .332. On average, families had household incomes (US $35,000–49,000) below the median annual household income in the United States (US $68,703; U.S. Census Bureau, 2019).
Procedures
The Institutional Review Board approved all study procedures. Researchers reviewed study consent forms with parent and child participants during online video calls. At that time, parent participants provided verbal consent for their own and their child’s participation and child participants provided verbal assent. At each of the four sessions, participants completed questionnaires assessing demographics, social behavior, and mental health outcomes. Here, we describe only measures included in the current analyses.
At Session 1, parents and daughters participated in an online video call with a researcher, during which their pandemic-related distress was assessed. At Session 2 and Session 3, parents were sent a survey via e-mail to be completed online, assessing their perceptions of and behavioral responding to COVID-19. At Session 4, parents and daughters completed their second and final online video call with a researcher, during which daughters’ empathy and prosocial behaviors were assessed. During Session 1 and Session 4, parents were asked to complete their questionnaires in a separate room on a separate device, while children remained on the video call with the researcher. At the end of the study, participants were compensated with an online gift card and a small prize, which was mailed to their homes.
Measures
Distress Proneness
Distress proneness in response to COVID-19 was assessed via an adapted version of a previously established measure targeting children’s general distress proneness (Vinik et al., 2011). At Session 1, daughters reported on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = not at all to 5 = very) the degree to which they were upset by 10 pandemic-related stressors (e.g., not seeing your friends, not going to school, thinking about your parents losing their job, etc.). Parents reported on the same 5-point Likert scale the degree to which they believed their children were upset by the same 10 pandemic-related stressors. Parents also reported on this same scale the degree to which they themselves were upset by a similar set of 10 pandemic-related stressors, which were adjusted slightly to increase age appropriateness (e.g., not seeing your friends, not going to work, the possibility of losing your job, etc.). Each respondent’s reports were averaged across the 10 items to yield child self-reported, child parent-reported, and parent self-reported pandemic-related distress scores. These measures demonstrated strong internal consistency in our sample with Cronbach’s αs of .80 for child self-reported distress proneness, .81 for child parent-reported distress proneness, and .85 for parent self-reported distress proneness.
Parental Empathic Accuracy
Children’s and parents’ reports on the degree to which children were upset by the 10 pandemic-related stressors (those used in the assessment of children’s distress proneness at Session 1) were utilized to calculate a parental empathic accuracy score. Following a previously established protocol using an equivalent measure not specific to the COVID-19 pandemic (Vinik et al., 2011), parents were considered accurate if their ratings for the items for which the child gave the highest and lowest scores were the same or within 1 point of the child’s. They were given a score of 3 if all of their ratings matched, that is, if they were the same or within 1 point for all of the child’s extreme scores, 2 if they were accurate on half or more but not all, 1 if they were accurate on fewer than half but at least one, and 0 if they were not accurate on any. To ensure that parents of children who gave extreme ratings to many items were not at a disadvantage, a score of 3 was also given to parents whose scores matched on 5 or more of the items for which children assigned the highest and lowest scores.
Parental Posttraumatic Growth
At Session 2 and Session 3, parents’ perceived positive outcomes of the COVID-19 pandemic were assessed via an adapted version of the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory (Tedeschi & Calhoun, 1996). This measure consisted of eight items (e.g., I have a greater appreciation for the value of my own life, I discovered I’m stronger than I thought I was, I learned a great deal about how wonderful people are, etc.) for which parents indicated on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree) the extent to which they agreed or disagreed with each statement. Items were summed to create a total posttraumatic growth score at each of the two time points, both of which demonstrated strong internal consistency with αs of .79 and .84, respectively. Parental posttraumatic growth scores were averaged across the two time points to create a composite score, which was used in all subsequent analyses.
Self-Report Child Empathy
At Session 4, children self-reported on their empathic tendencies via the Empathy Questionnaire for Children and Adolescents (Overgaauw et al., 2017). This measure consisted of 14 items (e.g., if a friend is sad I understand mostly why, I would like to help when a friend gets angry, when a friend is upset I feel upset too, etc.) for which children indicated on a 3-point Likert scale (1 = not true to 3 = often true) the extent to which each item was true for them. The scale demonstrated strong internal consistency with an α of .80. Participants’ responses were averaged across the 14 items to create a score of general empathy.
At the end of their final visit at Session 4, children were informed that another participant in the study ostensibly became sick and would not be able to finish her participation and receive her payment. They were asked follow-up questions regarding the peer. Specifically, children were asked how much empathic concern they felt for the peer via a 21-point pictorial-based scale used in prior work on empathic concern in children and adolescents (Dickerson & Quas, 2021; Li et al., 2013; Quas et al., 2017). Children were told, “Sometimes when we see others we feel good for them, sometimes we feel bad for them, and sometimes we don’t feel anything or we feel good and bad. Please use this scale to tell me how you feel for this person.” The scale shows a face with a large smile on one side and large frown on the other side (with a neutral midpoint). Children indicated how good or bad they felt for the peer (0 = extremely happy, 10 = not happy not unhappy, 20 = extremely unhappy). To probe the degree to which this pictorial-based measure was reflective of empathic tendencies in the current sample, children’s responses were correlated with their general empathy scores on the Empathy Questionnaire for Children and Adolescents (Overgaauw et al., 2017), a well-validated assessment of empathy.
Altruistic Sharing Behavior
To assess altruistic sharing behavior in the current study, we adapted a modified version of common monetary donation tasks used previously in prior research on youth altruism (Alen et al., 2021; Coulombe et al., 2019; Park & Shin, 2017; Tashjian et al., 2018). Following the empathy task, the donation task was administered. During the donation task, children were reminded they would be compensated $20 upon study completion. They were then asked whether they wanted to donate a portion of their earnings to the ostensibly sick anonymous peer but told it was up to them and they did not have to. Children responded with a binary yes/no. Children who responded in the affirmative were asked what proportion of their earnings they wanted to give to the peer (US $0–20). The sum total of their donation indexed their degree of altruistic sharing behavior and constituted our dependent measure. Before the virtual visit was completed, children were thanked and informed there would actually be no need to share their earnings, as the peer had just contacted the laboratory saying she was feeling much better and well enough to reschedule her visit for a later date.
Additional Covariates
Child age and annual household income, which was assessed via parental self-reports on a 9-point Likert scale (1 = less than $10,000 to 9 = $150,000 or more), were utilized as covariates in the current analyses. Because previous work has shown age-related changes in both empathy (Decety & Michalska, 2010; Eisenberg et al., 2013) and prosocial behavior (Padilla-Walker et al., 2018), child age was included as a covariate in all regression analyses. Because prosocial behavior was operationalized with monetary donations, the amount of which tends to increase with financial resources (Wiepking & Bekkers, 2012), annual household income was included as a covariate only in regression analyses examining altruistic sharing.
Data Analysis
All analyses were conducted in SPSS Version 27. Using the PROCESS macro (Hayes, 2013), moderated linear regressions tested whether parental empathic accuracy and posttraumatic growth interacted with children’s distress proneness to predict children’s affective empathy for and altruistic sharing with the ostensibly sick child. Separate regression models were conducted for each predictor (i.e., child self-reported distress proneness, child parent-reported distress proneness) and outcome (i.e., child empathy, child altruistic sharing behavior) of interest. First, controlling for child age, child affective empathy was regressed onto child self-reported distress proneness, parental empathic accuracy, and the product of child self-reported distress proneness and parental empathic accuracy. Second, controlling for child age, child affective empathy was regressed onto child parent-reported distress proneness, parental empathic accuracy, and the product of child parent-reported distress proneness and parental empathic accuracy. Third, controlling for child age and annual household income, child altruistic sharing behavior was regressed onto child self-reported distress proneness, parental posttraumatic growth, and the product of child self-reported distress proneness and parental posttraumatic growth. Fourth, controlling for child age and annual household income, child altruistic sharing behavior was regressed onto child parent-reported distress proneness, parental posttraumatic growth, and the product of child parent-reported distress proneness and parental posttraumatic growth. All variables were continuous and centered prior to analysis, and the estimated effects are reported as unstandardized regression coefficients. To address any non-normality in the distribution of the outcomes, the models were estimated using bootstrapped samples (bootstrap N = 5,000) to produce 95% bias-corrected CIs (BC CI) around the parameter estimates. Effects were determined to be significant at p < .05 if the upper and lower limits of the CIs did not contain zero. For significant interactions, each outcome was examined across three levels (average, +1 SD, −1 SD) of each predictor variable.
Results
Preliminary Analyses
Descriptive statistics are present in Table 1. One parent participant was missing child parent-reported distress proneness, parent- and self-reported distress proneness, and parental empathic accuracy scores. Four parent participants were missing parental posttraumatic growth scores. Nine child participants were missing child general empathy, child affective empathy, and child altruistic sharing behavior scores. Data were most likely missing at random (Little, 1988; Little’s MCAR χ2(10) = 12.85, p = .232), and thus, data were EM-imputed (Dempster et al., 1977).
Bivariate correlations are present in Table 2. We note that while the nonsignificant correlation between child self-reported and child parent-reported distress proneness was unexpected, discrepancies among multiple informants’ reports of child functioning are not uncommon (De Los Reyes & Kazdin, 2004). We therefore explored each respondent’s ratings of child distress proneness (i.e., self-reported and parent-reported) as separate predictors. We also note the correlation between our pictorial-based assessment of affective empathy and children’s general empathy scores on the Empathy Questionnaire for Children and Adolescents (M = 2.34, SD = 0.32) was significant, r = .30, p = .024. Furthermore, the pictorial-based assessment of affective empathy was also significantly correlated with children’s altruistic sharing behavior (r = .33, p = .013), which is consistent with work suggesting that although empathy is motivationally complex, empathic responding is sometimes accompanied by prosocial initiatives, such as efforts to comfort the distressed person, and this association becomes increasingly reliable with age (Eisenberg et al., 2006).
Parental Empathic Accuracy Moderates the Association Between Children’s Distress Proneness and Affective Empathy
The degree to which children reported feeling happy or sad for the ostensibly sick participant was used to index affective empathy (M = 16.09, SD = 3.68).
Child Self-Reported Distress Proneness
The first set of moderated linear regression analyses examined whether child affective empathy at Session 4 varied as a function of parental empathic accuracy and child self-reported distress proneness at Session 1. Controlling for age, a main effect of child distress proneness on child affective empathy emerged, b = 1.56, p = .012, such that increased distress proneness was related to increased affective empathy. No main effect of parental empathic accuracy, nor any interaction effect on child affective empathy, was observed, all ps > .085.
Child Parent-Reported Distress Proneness
The second set of moderated linear regression analyses examined whether child affective empathy at Session 4 varied as a function of parental empathic accuracy and child parent-reported distress proneness at Session 1. Controlling for age, a main effect of child distress proneness on child affective empathy emerged, b = 1.83, p < .001, such that increased distress was related to increased affective empathy. Furthermore, the effect of child distress proneness on child affective empathy was significantly moderated by parental empathic accuracy, ∆R2 = .08, p = .016 (Figure 1). Children’s distress proneness was positively associated with affective empathy at high, b = 3.27, p < .001, 95% BC CI [1.7982, 4.7500], and mean, b = 1.83, p = .001, 95% BC CI [.7877, 2.8796], but not low, b = .39, p = .633, 95% BC CI [−1.2483, 2.0348], levels of parental empathic accuracy. No main effect of parental empathic accuracy on child affective empathy emerged, p = .429.
We note the significant association among our predictors in this model (r = .39, p = .003) presents a potential issue of multicollinearity. As such, variance inflation factor (VIF) analyses were performed as a common post hoc diagnostic measure of multicollinearity (Thompson et al., 2017). VIF values for child parent-reported distress proneness, parental empathic accuracy, and their interaction were 1.20, 1.24, and 1.05, respectively. While there is no broad consensus on which VIF cutoff score is most appropriate, some researchers state that only a VIF greater than 10 indicates multicollinearity is severe enough to warrant corrective measures (Chatterjee & Price, 1991; Midi & Bagheri, 2010). As such, no corrective measures were applied.
Parental Posttraumatic Growth Moderates the Association Between Children’s Distress Proneness and Altruistic Sharing Behavior
The dollar amount children reported they would donate to the ostensibly sick participant was used to index altruistic sharing behavior (M = 7.96, SD = 5.36).
Child Self-Reported Distress Proneness
The third set of moderated linear regression analyses examined whether child altruistic sharing behavior at Session 4 varied as a function of parental posttraumatic growth across Session 2 and Session 3 and child self-reported distress proneness at Session 1. Controlling for child age and annual household income, no main or interaction effects of child distress proneness and parental posttraumatic growth on child altruistic sharing behavior were observed, all ps > .358.
Child Parent-Reported Distress Proneness
The fourth set of moderated linear regression analyses examined whether child altruistic sharing behavior at Session 4 varied as a function of parental posttraumatic growth across Session 2 and Session 3 and child parent-reported distress proneness at Session 1. Controlling for age and annual household income, a main effect of child distress proneness on child prosocial behavior emerged, b = 1.72, p = .049, such that increased distress was related to increased altruistic sharing behavior. Furthermore, the effect of child distress proneness on child altruistic sharing behavior was significantly moderated by parental posttraumatic growth, ∆R2 = .08, p = .038 (Figure 2). Children’s distress proneness was positively associated with altruistic sharing behavior at high, b = 3.89, p = .004, 95% BC CI [1.3068, 6.4738], and mean, b = 1.72, p = .049, 95% BC CI [.0076, 3.4243], but not low, b = −.46, p = .738, 95% BC CI [−3.2065, 2.2898], levels of parental posttraumatic growth. No main effect of parental posttraumatic growth on child altruistic sharing behavior emerged, p = .163.
Discussion
Although the COVID-19 pandemic has triggered immense physical, emotional, and economic hardship, in its wake, the world has also witnessed many acts of empathy, generosity, and kindness toward those in need. The current study examined how individual differences in parental empathic accuracy and posttraumatic growth related to children’s affective empathy and altruistic sharing behavior in the context of pandemic-related distress. Three key findings emerged. First, children’s distress proneness was positively associated with children’s affective empathy and altruistic sharing behavior toward an anonymous peer. Second, parental empathic accuracy moderated the association between children’s distress proneness and affective empathy, such that increased distress was associated with increased affective empathy in children of parents with high and mean, but not low, levels of empathic accuracy. Third, parental posttraumatic growth moderated the association between children’s distress proneness and altruistic sharing behavior, such that increased distress was associated with increased altruistic sharing behavior in children of parents who reported high and mean, but not low, levels of posttraumatic growth.
Unexpectedly, children’s distress proneness positively predicted children’s affective empathy and altruistic sharing behavior. Distress proneness may be difficult to reconcile with prosocial tendencies because individuals with high levels of personal distress are susceptible to relatively high levels of arousal which are often inversely related to empathy and prosocial behavior (Eisenberg1989c; Eisenberg & Fabes, 1992; Lebowitz & Dovidio, 2015), although other results are mixed (Williams et al., 2014). In the current study, we observed that children’s distress proneness was associated with increased empathy and prosocial behavior. It is possible that the direction of associations between elevated distress and prosocial behavior depends on situational contexts, with highly evocative or long-lasting adverse situations eliciting prosocial behaviors derived from distress as a means of coping (Midlarsky, 1991). Since we did not explicitly assess children’s motivation to help, such an interpretation remains speculative. Divergent patterns may also be due to our operationalization of child empathy (i.e., self-reported negative emotional arousal for an unknown other) and prosocial behavior (i.e., monetary donation to the unknown other). Patterns relating distress, empathy, and prosocial behavior are thought to vary, in part, according to how empathy and the behaviors in question have been measured (Eisenberg & Miller, 1987). Recent empirical work with operationalization similar to our current study has also observed positive associations between distress and both empathy (Li et al., 2013) and prosocial behavior (Sze et al., 2012). Thus, continued investigation with clear and consistent conceptualization of these constructs across a variety of situational contexts is needed to elucidate the interplay of distress proneness and parenting behaviors in promoting them. Of note, our findings were unique to children’s distress proneness, as reported by parents. No associations between children’s self-reported distress and empathy or prosocial behavior were observed. It is plausible that children’s subjective distress experiences may effectuate change in prosocial behaviors over a longer time period than several weeks. Therefore, longitudinal follow-up on the effects of children’s subjective experiences of distress would be informative.
In line with our second hypothesis, parental empathic accuracy moderated the association between children’s distress proneness and empathy. Elevated distress proneness was associated with increased affective empathy in children of parents with high and mean, but not low, levels of empathic accuracy. This longitudinal finding strengthens previous cross-sectional work showing that parents who more accurately predict their children’s thoughts and feelings in situations that involve distress are better positioned to respond appropriately to that distress (Vinik et al., 2011). Specifically, parents who know what most distresses their children may use this knowledge to talk to their children about their emotional experiences, help them correctly identify their origins, and encourage them to engage in effective coping behaviors. It is possible this supports a subsequent ability for children to identify and understand the negative emotions of others and thus to be empathic, even in times of personal distress. Because the current findings provide initial evidence that this specific type of parental knowledge is associated with positive child outcomes even in moments of crisis, understanding precisely how parents become knowledgeable is an important next step for future research. Of note, we did not support our hypothesis that elevated levels of distress would inversely predict children’s empathic responding at low levels of parental empathic accuracy. No association emerged between children’s distress proneness and empathic responding at low levels of parental empathic accuracy.
Consistent with our third hypothesis, parental posttraumatic growth moderated the association between children’s distress proneness and prosocial behavior. Increased distress was associated with increased altruistic sharing behavior in children whose parents exhibited high and mean, but not low, levels of posttraumatic growth. That is, parents who experienced greater positive change and engaged in more meaning-making about the COVID-19 pandemic had children who volunteered to donate a larger proportion of their study earnings to an unknown peer in need. This finding is in line with previous research linking posttraumatic growth to a wide range of other-oriented prosocial characteristics and behaviors (El-Gabalawy, 2010; El-Gabalawy et al., 2020; Shakespeare-Finch & Barrington, 2012). We add to the literature through our examination of between-individual associations in the context of COVID-19. Most prior work posits that a person’s sense of posttraumatic growth correlates positively with their own prosocial tendencies (El-Gabalawy, 2010; El-Gabalawy et al., 2020; Shakespeare-Finch & Barrington, 2012), but the current study suggests these associations could extend beyond a single individual, in this case, from parents to children.
Our aim in this study was to shine a light on whether certain parental behaviors and positive focus might foster children’s empathic concern and generosity during this uniquely adverse global event. In so doing, it was not our intention to minimize the very real and devastating consequences families with children have been facing during this global crisis (see, e.g., Twenge & Joiner, 2020). Our goal, instead, was to explore children’s understanding of others in the wake of this distress, as previous work suggests that overarousal in the context of distressing events can contribute to children’s self-focus and reduced awareness of others’ emotions (Eisenberg & Fabes, 1992; Fries & Pollak, 2004; Pollak et al., 2000). Elucidating factors associated with children’s understanding of others’ distress is key to promoting community collaboration and cohesion during moments of crisis.
We also note that posttraumatic growth and its concomitant promotive effects on children’s empathy and generosity may vary according to the type of crisis experienced. Here, we focus on globally and communally experienced adversity, rather than interpersonal adversities experienced individually by children. We believe this to be an important distinction because, as compared to individually experienced trauma following crisis, trauma experienced within a (virtual or actual) community may motivate collective coping, which can act as a protective process that enhances recovery and group problem solving (Kaniasty, 2012). Responses to collective global crises may encourage empathy and prosocial behavior as communities develop a heightened sense of connectedness and meaning in their shared experience. In contrast, individually experienced traumatic events, such as physical or sexual abuse, are often accompanied by feelings of shame and isolation, which may undermine prosocial behavior (Coulombe, 2021; Dorahy & Clearwater, 2012).
The current preliminary findings should be considered in the context of several limitations. First, sample size was modest relative to previous studies on parental empathic accuracy (N = 140; Vinik et al., 2011) and posttraumatic growth (N = 105; Hafstad et al., 2010), potentially limiting statistical power. This could have particularly affected some of the interactions tested. Although analyses utilized bootstrapping techniques to assist with this limitation, future work with larger samples is warranted. Because of the highly uncertain nature of data collection with families in our community in the midst of COVID-19, we did not conduct a formal power analysis prior to study onset. Post hoc analyses indicate that studies wishing to replicate the current findings should aim for a sample size larger than N = 77 to ensure adequate power (0.80, α = .05) to detect small-to-medium (> 0.15) effects in the hypothesized associations.
Second, our study lacked prepandemic measures of children’s empathy and prosocial behavior, limiting our ability to assess associations with our outcome variables after controlling for baseline levels of empathy. An important direction for future research will be to continue examining child and parenting effects as time-varying predictors of empathy and prosocial behavior as families transition out of the pandemic and cope with the aftermath of collective trauma. Third, children may have felt obligated to donate money in the generosity task. Although we provided no emotive feedback during the task and we observed variability in participants’ donation amounts ranging from the total sum of their compensation to none of it, future work may want to consider including indices of prosocial behavior that may be less subject to desirability bias, such as anonymized donations.
Several strengths mitigate these limitations and elucidate the role parents play in their children’s understanding of others in moments of crisis. First, we focused on a sample of predominantly Mexican-origin Latino families. This population has historically placed greater cultural value on community interdependence (Segal et al., 2011; Zhou et al., 2021), which extends work of previous theoretical models that have focused primarily on European American populations known to have more individualistic cultural values (Triandis, 1989) and adds to a growing evidence base on empathy and prosocial behavior in Latino youth (e.g., Carlo et al., 2018). Second, the longitudinal nature of this four-session study illuminates directionality in the associations between children’s distress and parenting behaviors in the context of crises and how these factors interact to predict the understanding of others. Third, we increase ecological validity by examining these factors in the context of COVID-19, a highly distressing global health and economic crisis that has disproportionately affected communities of color (Bibbins-Domingo, 2020). We explore its effects in one such community and elucidate factors associated with heterogeneity in community members’ responding.
In conclusion, the present study reports moderating effects of parental empathic accuracy and posttraumatic growth in the association between children’s pandemic-related distress and their affective empathy for and altruistic sharing with others. The findings were specific to children’s parent-reported distress. These results suggest that certain facets of parenting are linked to children’s understanding of others in moments of crisis. Continued longitudinal research with larger samples is necessary to more completely understand associations between parental functioning and children’s empathy and prosocial tendencies in the face of distress.
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