The Relations of Parental Characteristics and Practices to Children's Vicarious Emotional Responding

The Relations of Parental Characteristics andPractices to Children's Vicarious EmotionalResponding

Nancy Eisenberg, Richard A. Fabes, Mark Schaller,Gustavo Carlo, and Paul A. MillerArizona State University

EISENBERG, NANCY; FABES, RICHARD A.; SCHALLER, MARK; CARLO, GUSTAVO; and MILLER,PAUL A. The Relations of Parental Characteristics and Practices to Children's Vicarious Emo-tional Responding. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1991, 62, 1393-1408. We examined the relation ofparental empathy-related characteristics and emotion-related child-rearing practices to third andsixth graders' vicarious emotional responding. Children's heart rate, skin conductance, facial,and self-reported reactions to a sympathy-inducing film were assessed, as were their dispositionalsympathy, empathy, and self-monitoring. Parental sympathy was positively related to low levelsof personal distress in same-sex children and, for both parents, with sons' dispositional sympathyor empathy. Parental emphasis on problem-focused coping strategies when their sons were anx-ious was positively correlated with indexes of sons' situational and dispositional sympathy.Same-sex parental restrictiveness in regard to the control of inappropriate, hurtful emotionaldisplays was associated with sons' and daughters' dispositional and situational sympathy,whereas maternal restrictiveness in regard to emotions that are unlikely to hurt others wascorrelated with nonverbal indexes of personal distress and self reports of iow distress. Parentalemphasis on control of the child's own negative emotion was associated with children's self-mon-itoring.

Psychologists frequently have assumed has been associated with the developmentthat empathy (an emotional reaction based of a secure attachment early in life (Iannotti,on the apprehension of another's emotional Zahn-Waxler, Cummings, & Milano, 1987;state or condition, which is consistent with Kestenbaum, Farber, & Sroufe, 1989), sup-the other's emotional state or condition) portive parenting, and parental empathy orplays an important role in moral behavior sympathy, particularly for mothers (Bamett,(e.g., Batson, 1987; Hofftnan, 1982; Staub, King, Howard, & Dino, 1980; Fabes, Eisen-1979) and social competence (e.g., Saarni, berg, & Miller, 1990; see Bamett, 1987).1990). Thus, the topic of the socialization of However, maternal warmth or sympathy inempathy is of importance to an understand- and of itself may not always be positivelying of socioemotional development. related to offspring's empathy. Koestner,

Despite the importance of empathy in f̂ "̂̂ ' ^J"^ Weinberger (1990) found no rela-social development, there is relatively little *^«" between maternal warmth m childhoodresearch concerning parental influences and ^^^ '̂̂ "'̂ f'̂ '̂̂ " ^ To^sS'^f A J^"^^^°^'correlates of childreri's empathy. Nonethe- ^.''"''^ ^"^ Janssen (1989) found no asso-less, several tentative conclusions can be "^j '°" between Dutch children s empathydrawn from the limited research. Consistent ^°^ '^^'^''^ (maternal or paternal) support-with predictions based on social learning iveness.theory (regarding modeling) and the etho- Indeed, practices that involve some dis-logical view of attachment, level of empathy cipline or restrictiveness may facilitate the

This research was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (BNS8807784)to the first two authors and a Career Development Award from the National Institute of ChildHealth and Development (K04 HD00717) to Nancy Eisenberg. The authors thank Neil Bechtel,Joseph Campos, and Ernest Lindholm for their advice regarding technical aspects of the studyand Lisa Eisenbud, Barbara Emert, Richard Klein, Cindy Shea, Rita Shell, Traci May-Plumlee,and Rick Poulin for their assistance as experimenters. We also express our gratitude to theprincipals, students, and teachers at Broadmor, Evans, Fuller, and Hudson schools. Requests forreprints should be addressed to Nancy Eisenberg, Department of Psychology, Arizona StateUniversity, Tempe, AZ 85287. Mark Schaller is now in the Department of Psychology at theUniversity of Texas, Arlington. Paul Miller is now at Arizona State University, West Campus.

[Child Development, 1991,62,1393-1408. © 1991 by the Society for Research in Child Development, Inc.AU rights reserved. 0009-3920/91/6206-0001 $01.00]

1394 Child Development

development of empathy. Koestner et al.(1990) found positive, marginally significantrelations between adult daughters' (but notsons') empathy and both maternal restric-tiveness and inhibition of aggression. Evenmore striking are the findings of Janssenset al. (1989); they found that both maternaland paternal demandingness (i.e., the par-ent's tendency to point at responsibility orsay which behavior he or she expects in asituation) were associated with elementaryschool children's self-reported empathy.Findings such as these are consistent withBaumrind's (1971) conclusion that support-ive parenting combined with parental firm-ness in regard to setting limits and standardsis associated with socially responsible be-havior in childhood.

Unfortunately, many dimensions of par-enting that are of conceptual interest havenot been examined empirically. For exam-ple, Hoffman (1982) and Eisenberg, Bem-zweig, and Fabes (in press) have proposedthat too much empathic arousal is likely tobe aversive and to result in a self-orientedpersonal distress reaction rather than another-oriented, sympathetic reaction. If theyare correct, parental practices that facilitateconstructive coping with emotion in dis-tressing contexts would be expected to beassociated with children's experience ofsympathy rather than personal distress. Con-sistent with this view, Roberts and Strayer(1987) found that parental problem-solvingresponses when their children were upsetwere related to children's social compe-tence.

In contrast, parental demands that chil-dren control their own feelings and emo-tional displays are likely to result in anxietywhen experiencing negative emotions, at-tempts to mask emotional displays (Buck,1984), and the tendency to monitor one'sexpressivity and self-presentation (i.e., self-monitoring; Snyder, 1974). However, theremay be a critical distinction between paren-tal emphasis on the children's control oftheir own self-related emotion that is notlikely to hurt others and their focus on theinhibition of displays of emotion that arelikely to have significant negative conse-quences for others. Parental emphasis oncontrolling the experience and display ofself-related emotion, particularly if accom-panied by sanctions or disapproval, mayresult in either low levels of emotionalresponding or internal anxiety about emo-tional responding (Buck, 1984), whereas pa-rental emphasis on the consequences of

one's emotional displays for others may fos-ter perspective taking and other-orientedconcern rather than the inhibition of emo-tion or anxiety about experiencing negativefeelings. Consistent with the latter argu-ment, in a preliminary study, Fabes, Eisen-berg, Miller, and Fultz (1988) found thatmatenal restrictiveness with regard to sons'expression of emotion in contexts in whichthe display of emotion might embarrass orhurt others was associated with sons' sympa-thy. Such a relation between parental emo-tion-related practices and children's emo-tional reactions might be expected toincrease with age due to increased exposureto the parental practices.

The existing data not only are limited inquantity and in the breadth of their focusbut also are inadequate in other ways. First,there is very little research involving fathers.Second, there are conceptual and method-ological limitations of the existing research.In most of the studies, investigators havenot differentiated between two different vi-carious emotional responses that have beenlabeled empathy: sympathy and personaldistress. Sympathy is defined as an other-ori-ented emotional reaction (e.g., concern) toanother's emotional state or condition,whereas personal distress is defined as aself-oriented, aversive emotional reactionsuch as anxiety or discomfort (Batson, 1987).Sympathy, but not personal distress, hasbeen associated with altruistically motivatedbehavior (Batson, 1987; Eisenberg et al.,1989). Thus, it is important to differentiatebetween the socialization correlates of sym-pathy and those of personal distress.

In addition, in most studies of empathyand related responses, emotional respond-ing has been assessed with self-report in-dexes. However, the validity of self-reportindexes has been questioned, particularlyyounger children's reports of empathy inexperimental settings and in response tostories about emotionally evocative contexts(e.g., Eisenberg & Miller, 1987; Hoftman,1982). Thus, there is a need for studies inwhich children's sympathy and personal dis-tress are assessed with more than self-reportindexes.

In the present study, we tried to addresssome of the aforementioned limitations inthe existing body of research. First, we ex-amined the relation of parental emotion-related practices and emphasis on problemsolving as well as parental empathy-relatedcharacteristics to children's vicarious emo-

Eisenberg et al. 1395

tional responding. Data pertaining to theformer issue are virtually nonexistent, andresearch concerning parental sympathy hasbeen conducted primarily with mothers.Second, we obtained paternal data as wellas maternal data for some of our indexes ofparental characteristics and behavior. Third,we differentiated between sympathy andpersonal distress conceptually and in termsof measures. Fourth, a multimethod ap-proach was used to assess vicarious emo-tional responding—one including self-report, facial, and physiological indexes. Inaddition, the relations of parental practicesto both reactions to others' distress in a par-ticular context (situational indexes) and todispositional sympathy and empathy wereexamined.

Based on the prior research and sociallearning and ethological theory, we ex-pected sympathetic parents to have childrenrelatively high in sympathy and low in per-sonal distress. This association betweenparental and children's sympathetic tenden-cies was expected to be stronger for same-sex dyads (Bamett et al., 1980; Fabes et al.,1990) because children appear to be morelikely to model the behavior of same-sexthan other-sex models (Perry & Bussey,1979).

In addition, based on the aforemen-tioned theorizing regarding emotional over-arousal (Hoffman, 1982), we expected pa-rental practices that facilitate children'seffective coping with negative emotions tobe positively associated with sympathy andnegatively related to personal distress. Inline with discussions of the effectivenessof various coping strategies (Compas, 1987;Lazarus & Folkman, 1984; Shure, 1982), pa-rental emphasis on constructing strategiesto deal instrumentally with a problem (i.e.,cognitive or direct problem-focused coping)was expected to be particularly effective inhelping children to regulate their emotionalarousal (resulting in a sympathetic ratherthan personal distress reaction), especiallyin situations in which children have somecontrol. Moreover, supportive parental prac-tices that affirm that it is acceptable for thechild to experience negative emotions wereexpected to be associated with more dis-plays and greater self-report of negativeemotion (Roberts & Strayer, 1987), whereaspractices that encourage the control of emo-tion were expected to be associated with rel-atively few facial displays of emotion, lowself-report of negative emotion, and highlevels of self-monitoring (Buck, 1984). Re-

strictive practices in regard to emotional dis-plays also were expected to be associatedwith physiological evidence of distress(Buck, 1984). Lastly, based on prior findings(e.g., Koestner et al., 1990) and theorizingregarding directive child-rearing practices(Baumrind, 1971; Staub, 1979), we expectedparents who emphasized control of hurtfulemotional displays to have children whowere relatively sympathetic.

In the present study, heart rate (HR) andskin conductance (SC) were the two physio-logical indexes of vicarious emotional re-sponding. Heart rate deceleration has beenfound in sympathy-inducing contexts (e.g.,Craig & Lowery, 1969; Eisenberg, 1988) andhas been associated with prosocial behavior(Eisenberg et al., 1989, 1990). Because HRdeceleration is associated with the intake ofinformation from the environment in psy-chophysiological studies (e.g., Cacioppo &Sandman, 1978), HR deceleration in sym-pathy-inducing contexts may be a marker ofan other-oriented focus of attention. In con-trast, HR acceleration has been associatedwith anxiety and active coping (Cacioppo &Sandman, 1978; Craig, 1968; Lazarus, 1974)and low levels of children's helpfulness(Eisenberg et al., 1989). Thus, HR decelera-tion during exposure to a distressed personhas proved to be a reasonable marker (butnot an invariant indicator; see Cacioppo &Tassinary, 1990) of sympathy, whereas HRacceleration appears to covary with anxietyand distress. However, we do not view HRdeceleration as an index of emotion—solelyas an index of focus of attention. Moreover,it is possible that after an individual focuseson a needy other, he or she also experiencespersonal distress. Thus, HR acceleration anddeceleration were viewed as imperfect cor-relates of personal distress and sympathy,ones that must be interpreted with caution.

Skin conductance has been viewed asan indirect marker of intensity of emotionalarousal (e.g., Craig & Lowery, 1969; Win-ton, Putnam, & Krauss, 1984), although itmay reflect other processes and a variety ofemotional responses. Because empathic sad-ness and sympathy typically are less phys-iologically arousing than are feelings ofpersonal distress (Mehrabian, 1980; Shaver,Schwartz, Kirson, & O'Connor, 1987), we ex-pected SC to more likely be a correlate ofpersonal distress than sympathy. This as-sumption is consistent with the results ofa prior study in which (a) adults' SC washigher in response to a distressing thansympathy-inducing film, and (b) adults' self-


reported distress in reaction to the distressfilm, but not their self-reported sympathy inresponse to the sympathy film, was posi-tively correlated with SC (Eisenberg et al.,1990). However, given the tentative natureof findings regarding the usefulness of SC asa marker of sympathy and personal distress,this issue was examined further in the pres-ent study.

Method

SubjectsParticipants were 71 third graders (30

girls, 41 boys; M age = 109.5 months, SD =4.67) and 56 sixth graders (28 girls, 28 boys;M age = 144.2 months, SD = 4.49) and theirparents. We selected children who were inpreadolescence as well as in mid-primaryschool because the socialization of somegender-typed characteristics (such as sym-pathy) may be heightened as children ap-proach adolescence (Block, 1976). Cener-ally, one parent accompanied the child tothe laboratory, filled out questionnaires atthat time, and was interviewed (115 mothersand 11 fathers). In two-parent families, theabsent parent was asked to fill out somequestionnaires at home, resulting in a sam-ple of 74 fathers and 120 mothers who com-pleted the questionnaires (76% of avail-able fathers provided data, although somedata were missing for some people, as is de-scribed shortly). Participants were recruitedfrom schools in a middle-class suburbanneighborhood. Approximately 85% wereCaucasian; the majority of the remainderwere Hispanic. Mean years of education forthe mothers and fathers in the families were14.7 (SD = 2.2) and 15.6 (SD = 2.7), respec-tively, and the parents' mean income wasnearly $48,000 (SD = 22.2). An additionaltwo dyads were dropped due to equipmentor procedural problems, and six more weredropped due to the fact that the children ex-pressed knowledge of the study's proce-dures or suspicions regarding the authentic-ity of the study. Children were paid $5 forparticipation.

Personality and Socialization MeasuresThe children were administered four

scales: (a) Bryant's (1982) empathy scale forchildren, which assesses global sympathy(i.e., a combination of empathy, sympathy,personal distress, perspective taking, andemotional contagion; alpha = .63 after delet-ing one item that lowered the reliability); (b)Craziano, Leone, Musser, and Lautenschla-ger's (1987) Junior Self-Monitoring Scale

(alpha = .58 after dropping eight itemswhich lowered the Eilpha); (c) 10 items fromCrandall, Crandall, and Katkovsky's (1965)children's social desirability scale (used inEisenberg et al., 1989; alpha in the presentstudy = .62); and (d) a simplified, three-itemsympathy scale adapted from Davis's (1983)empathetic concern (sympathy) subscale(alpha = .67). The items on the latter scalewere "I often feel sorry for people who don'thave the things I have," "When I see some-one being picked on, I feel kind of sorry forthem," and "I often feel sorry for other chil-dren who are sad or in trouble." All thesescales except the last have been used beforein research with children.

Measures administered to the parentsincluded: (1) a demographic questionnaire,(2) three subscales from Davis's (1983) Inter-personal Reactivity Index (IRI) (this ques-tionnaire was accidentally omitted for eightparents; n's = 111 mothers and 74 fathers),and (3) two subsets of items from Saar-ni's (1985) Parental Attitude toward ChildExpressiveness Scale (PACES). Five itemsselected described situations in which thechild might cause another person substantialemotional distress (e.g., staring at a mentallyretarded person) or hurt someone with aninappropriate display of anger (henceforthreferred to as PACES-Hurtful; available for115 mothers and 70 fathers due to somemissing data). Eleven other items pertainedto the expression of emotions in contexts inwhich no one else was hurt (PACES-Self;available for 120 mothers and 71 fathers).

Order of the questionnaires was coun-terbalanced, although the demographicquestionnaire was always first. Alphas forthe three IRI subscales (of seven items each)for mothers and fathers were as follows: (o)empathic or sympathetic concern (EC; sym-pathy), .67 and .78, respectively; (b) perspec-tive taking (PT; cognitively taking theother's perspective), .77 and .73; (c) personaldistress (PD; experiencing self-orientedfeelings of personal anxiety and unease intense interpersonal settings), .73 and .82.High scores on these scales indicate moredispositional sympathy, cognitive perspec-tive taking, or feelings of personal distress.Alphas for the PACES-Hurtful scale formothers and fathers were .68 and .72, andthe alpha for mothers' PACES-Self scale was.60. The internal consistency of this scalewas very low for fathers; thus, this scale wasdropped in the analyses for fathers. Highscores on the PACES subscales indicate rel-

atively restrictive practices and, for many ofthe items on the PACES-self subscale, rela-tive punitiveness.

When they were approximately halfwaythrough completing the questionnaires, par-ents who came to the laboratory (11 fathers,110 mothers; five could not stay or the tapewas inaudible) also were interviewed usinga modified version of a structured interviewdeveloped by John Gottman (personal com-munication, 1987). As part of this interview,parents were asked what they did whentheit child was (a) sad and (b) anxious (e.g.,"How do you respond to your child whenhe/she is distressed or worried?"). In addi-tion, they were asked to talk about howmuch they valued sympathy and their ownexpression of sympathy ("Some people thinkthat when you feel sorry for others youshould express your feelings because theperson you feel sorry for might feel better.Other people think that the person you feelsorry for will be embarrassed or shamed ifyou express your concern. How do you feelabout exhibiting concern?" "Do you showthese feelings or keep them inside?" "Canothers tell when you feel sorry for them orconcerned?").

Stiniulus FilmA sympathy-inducing film (a clip from

"I'll Find a Way") was used to evoke emo-tional responses akin to sympathy and per-sonal distress. In the film, a child with spinabifida talks in a neutral to positive tone dur-ing most of the film, but is shown havingdifficulty walking during a therapy session.For the most part, the child talks about hertherapy in a descriptive manner. This filmhas been found to elicit sympathy in priorresearch (e.g., Eisenberg et al., 1988). Thefilm is 143 sec long and contains about 30sec of relatively neutral content before it isclear that the child has spina bifida, 54 secof relatively evocative content in which thechild talks very briefly about her conditionand then is shown doing exercises and walk-ing in therapy, and a particularly evocativeshort section (6 sec) near the end when thechild attempts to walk and almost falls (andshe comments that walking is hard). The se-lection of this last period was based on apriori consensus of psychologists. The filmwas preceded by 15 sec of colored bars.

The children also viewed a second,somewhat scary film selected to elicit reac-tions akin to personal distress. This film isnot central to the data reported in this study.


but its inclusion did influence the proce-dures in the study. According to t tests com-paring HR and SC reactions to the base-line periods prior to the first and secondfilms, children's physiological respondingreturned to its baseline level by the begin-ning of the second film.

ProcedureEach child came with a parent to a wait-

ing area on campus. After a brief introduc-tion concerning the purpose of the study(i.e., to see how children react to varioustypes of films), two 8-mm silver-silver chlo-ride electrodes were attached to the palmarsurface of the child's nondominant handby a same-sex experimenter (one of fivewomen or four men). The SC electrodeswere attached at the beginning of the ses-sion to allow sufficient time for the electro-lyte to penetrate the skin. At that time, theparent was escorted to a separate room to fillout questionnaires and to be interviewed.

Next the child was verbally adminis-tered the social desirability and self-moni-toring scales (order was counterbalanced).Then, approximately 10-15 min after thechild arrived, the child and experimenterwent to a room where the child was seatedfacing a partially shielded one-way mirrorand a television. After obtaining the child'sconsent to participate (parental consent wasobtained previously), the experimenter ex-plained how the physiological equipmentworked and tried to allay any anxiety. Mostof the children previously had touched theelectrodes at their schools. Two prejelledelectrocardiograph electrodes were placedon the left side of the child by the same-sexexperimenter—one on the chest below theclavicle near the sternum and one higher,just above or below the clavicle on theshoulder (further out from the sternum). Be-cause the placement is so high on the trunkof the body, the application of electrodesdoes not require the removal of clothing orsensitive contact with the child's body. Thenthe experimenter loosely strapped thechild's left arm to the arm of the chair toreduce movement.

The child then viewed one of the twofilms alone (order was counterbalanced).During the film, the child's SC and HR weremonitored. Children were surreptitiouslyvideotaped through a one-way mirror whilethey viewed the tape. After viewing the firstfilm, the children called the experimenterback with a bell. Then they rated their emo-


tional reactions on a five-point scale (1 ="don't feel that way at all"; 5 = "feel thatway a whole lot"). To help the children un-derstand the use of scaling, the scale waspresented visually in the form of five stacksof checkers that differed in height. The chil-dren were instructed to indicate how muchthey were feeling each emotion whilewatching the tape (order of the adjectiveswas counterbalanced across subjects). In-cluded were adjectives reflecting sympa-thetic feelings (feeling sorry for others, feel-ing sad for somebody else, feeling pity forothers), personal distress (feeling nervous orafraid, uncomfortable, and concerned abouthow you yourself feel), sadness (feeling sad,feeling down or low), and happiness (feelinggood, feeling great), most of which havebeen used in prior research (e.g., Batson,1987).

We also tried to manipulate perspec-tive-taking set (imagine vs. observe objec-tively) using instructions adapted fromDavis, Hull, Young, and Warren (1987).However, the effects of the manipulationwere inconsistent; the imagine set was asso-ciated with HR acceleration and reportedsadness, p's < .003 and .024. Thus, perspec-tive set merely was controlled in furtheranalyses.

After completing the adjective list, sub-jects filled out several questionnaires (on TVand film preferences) unrelated to the pur-pose of the present study. This was done, inpart, to allow any emotional reaction to thefirst film to dissipate. Next, the child viewedthe remaining film alone. After the film, thechild rated his or her emotional reactionsagain, after which a balloon was suddenlypopped near the subject. This was done todetermine whether the SC electrodes werestill functional; if so, one would expect a risein SC. Subsequently, the experimenter ver-bally administered the Bryant empathy scaleand the modified Davis sympathy scale. Thechildren were then debriefed and asked ifthey were willing to sign a release to allowus to use the videotapes of them for researchpurposes (all agreed).

Data CodingHeart rate (HR).—Heart rate data were

recorded onto tapes for entry into the com-puter. The HR samples (collected every 10msec) were used to compute mean HR perV2-sec period. When there was artifact in thedata due to movement (which occurred rela-tively infrequently), the average of the onecodable beat immediately before and after

the artifact was used in place of the uncoda-ble data points.

Critical segments of the films had beenchosen by several psychologists prior to thestudy. For the sympathy film, the criticalpoint was the 6-sec section near the endwhen the child with spina bifida was at-tempting to walk and was having difficulty;this section has been shown to elicit markersof sympathetic responding (Eisenberg et al.,1988). The entire tape could not be used be-cause not all sections were evocative and be-cause HR responses are relatively quick andtend to return to baseline.

Due to defective equipment, the audio-taped physiological data for 41 subjects wereunusable. For these subjects, the data fromthe tachometer printouts that were collectedduring data collection were entered into aprogram designed to transform the tachome-ter data into V2-sec bins. These data did notdiffer significantly from the data on audio-tape.

Skin conductance (SC).—Skin conduc-tance data were also stored on audiotape andthen run through a program that computedphasic responses. Data for three subjectswith no SC responses, even in response tothe popped balloon, were dropped fromanalyses. Phasic responses were those of .05micromho or larger (although responses of2.5 or larger were assumed to be artifact).For the 41 subjects with unusable tapes, datawere obtained from the polygraph outputs.

Because phasic responses are relativelyslow and infrequent, SC was assessed dur-ing the longer evocative portion of the film(59 sec, including an additional 5 sec afterthe end of the critical period to ensure in-cluding SC responses that occurred in re-sponse to the end of the film). Number of SCresponses was converted to rate per minuteafter standardizing within individual. In ad-dition to an index of number of phasic re-sponses, we also computed amplitudes andrise times for each phasic response (using aprogram from John Cacioppo, personal com-munication, 1988). Thus, our initial indexesof SC were standardized number of phasicresponses, standardized maximum rise time,standardized maximum amplitude, standard-ized mean amplitude, and standardizedmean rise time. Because some subjects ex-hibited no phasic responses or only one re-sponse during a film, standardizing couldnot be done using within-subject standarddeviations (Ben-Shakhar, 1987). Thus, num-ber of phasic responses was standardized by


dividing by the number of phasics in theevocative period, neutral period, and col-ored bars period of the films. Mjiximum andmean amplitudes and rise times were stan-dardized by dividing by the mean amplitudeand the mean rise time, respectively (com-puted for all phasics during the evocative,neutral, and colored bar portions of thefilms).

Because relatively small movementscan affect SC, subjects' movements werecoded from the videotapes on a 4-point scale(1 = no movement; 2 = slight head move-ment of less than 45 degrees; 3 = largerhead movement; 4 = significant movementof trunk of body). Any phasic response oc-curring within 5 sec subsequent to a move-ment coded a 3 or 4 was removed from thedata (exact agreement on whether a move-ment was either a 3 or 4, computed for 35subjects, was 82%). Movements were rela-tively infrequent, and some SC editing wasperformed for only about 15% of the sub-jects.

The five indexes of SC frequency andintensity for the sympathy film were highlyinterrelated (r's ranged from .60 to .94); thus,these indexes were standardized (across in-dividuals) and averaged to form a compositeindex. According to a f test, this SC compos-ite did not differ for data on audiotape andhand-scored data, p < .75.

Facial reactions.—The children's facialresponses during the film were coded by twopersons who had no familiarity with theother data in the study (the reliability coderscored 35 subjects). The sound was elimi-nated during coding to keep the coders un-aware of what was going on in the film.

Every 5 sec of tape, the coders scoredthe child on a variety of emotions with a5-point scoring system (1 = no display ofthe emotion; 5 = strong display of emotion).The criteria for scoring the reactions weretaken from prior work (Eisenberg, Fabes, etal., 1988, 1989, in press). Fear, sadness, andhappiness were coded using criteria verysimilar to those of Ekman and Friesen(1978). However, maximum responding dur-ing the time period and specific facial ex-pressions were coded, not specific facialmovements. Personal distress was coded ifthe child displayed a reaction similar to Ek-man and Friesen's mild apprehension ex-pression (e.g., eyebrow somewhat raised andpulled together) or exhibited nonfunctional,nervous mouth and chin movements such asthe tightening or biting of the lips. Con-

cerned attention was coded using the cri-teria outlined in Eisenberg et al. (1989).However, because concerned attention, sad,and happy expressions occurred very infre-quently (M's were 1.025 or less), they arenot discussed further. Fear expressions alsowere very infrequent and were treated aspersonal distress in the analyses.

The 5-sec periods of facial reaction datawere averaged for the evocative portions forthe film (separately for each emotion). In-terrater reliability (Pearson r) computed forfacial distress for the 60-sec evocative por-tion of the sympathy film was .77, and thealpha coefficient, computed for the 12 5-secsegments constituting the evocative portionof the film, was .61.

Because children exhibited personaldistress (but virtually no other emotions)while they were in a neutral condition,scores for facial distress during the neutralportion of the film were subtracted from cod-ings for the same emotion while observingthe sympathy film. These difference scoreswere then used in all analyses for facial dis-tress (Eisenberg et al., 1989).

Self-reported reactions.—Composite in-dexes of emotional response were com-puted by determining the mean ratings forthe adjectives in each composite index. Theadjective "feeling concerned about how you,yourself, feel" was dropped because it low-ered the internal consistency of the dis-tressed indexes. The alphas for happy, sad,distress, and sympathy were .83, .68, .53, and.80. These reliabilities are relatively high forscales composed of two or three items (Nun-nally, 1967). Because happy and sad affectwere highly correlated, r(125) = - .63, p <.001, and both reflect mood, a negative moodscale was constructed by subtracting scoresfor happiness from scores for sadness.

Interview data.—Parents' responses tothe interviews were transcribed and codedinto a variety of categories. Those of concep-tual interest that occurred with at least aminimal frequency were as follows: (a) val-ues the expression of sympathy: coded fromon a five-point scale (1 = doesn't value; 5 =values a lot, e.g., "should show sympathy tonearly everyone"); (b) positive support: re-assures or calms child, hugs child to comfort,shows concern for child, affirms that it is al-right for the child to feel anxious or sad; (c)discusses: tries to find out why child feels ashe or she does, helps child talk it out andwork feelings through; (d) problem solves:helps child find a way to manage the situa-


tion (rather than the affect); and (e) encour-ages emotional control: tries to get child tochange, control, or inhibit his or her ownfeelings. All the categories except valuessympathy were coded separately for discus-sion of anxiety and discussion of sadness (1= absence; 2 = presence of the category).Parental comments anywhere in the discus-sion of each of these two sections of the in-terview were used in the scoring. Kappas fortwo raters (based on data from 39 interviews)were .79 or higher for all categories. ThePearson r for coders' ratings of valuing sym-pathy was .92.

The scores for the various categoriescoded for both anxiety and sadness generallywere positively correlated across scores foranxiety and sadness (with a couple being atleast marginally significantly related, r[119]for comfort and discussion were .17 and .22,p's < .063 and .016); therefore, to reduce thenumber of categories and increase the fre-quencies in them, scores for a category wereaveraged across the two emotions.

ResultsInterrelations among Indexes of Responseto the Sympathy Film

To examine the interrelations of our in-dexes of emotional response to the sympathyfilm, the SC composite, facial indexes (sym-pathy, personal distress, and happiness),verbal indexes (mood, sympathy, distress),and an index of HR were intercorrelated,partialing for age, perspective-taking set,and order of the tapes. In these analyses, theHR index was the mean HR during the criti-cal period of the film minus the mean HRduring the neutral portion of the film. Al-though trend analyses frequently have beenused to examine patterns of HR during a film(e.g., Eisenberg et al., 1988, 1989, 1990),using a repeated-measures trend analysisprocedure to predict dependent variablesrequires dichotomizing the dependent vari-ables or interpreting complex interactionsinvolving continuous variables. Thus, as inprior research (e.g., Eisenberg et al., 1989;Caertner & Dovidio, 1977), differencescores were used in correlational analyses.

Verbal reports were unrelated to HR,SC, or facial distress. However, for the totalsample, facial distress was positively corre-lated with higher HR response, partial r( 114)= .20 p < .028. In addition, for girls only,high SC was positively related to facial per-sonal distress, partial r(48) = .33, p < .018;this finding supports the notion that SC is abetter index of distress than sympathy.

The relations of the dispositional sym-pathy and empathy (Bryant) scales to theother indexes of vicarious response alsowere examined. The correlations differed bysex. For girls, sympathy was negatively re-lated to SC reactivity, partial r(52) = - .37,p < .007, and positively related to verbal re-port of situational negative mood and sympa-thy, partial r's(53) = .27 and .42, p's < .045and .001. These findings for girls supportedthe assumption that SC is not an index ofsympathy. For boys, dispositional sympathywas negatively related to HR, partial r's(63)= - .26, p < .04. In addition, boys' disposi-tional sympathy, but not Bryant empathyscores, was positively related to reportedsympathy in reaction to the sympathy film,partial r(63) = .41, p < .001. Thus, for bothsexes, dispositional sympathy was related tomarkers of sympathy, whereas the Bryantscale was correlated with indexes of sympa-thy or empathy primarily for boys (r's be-tween dispositional sympathy and Bryantempathy scores were .18 and .40, p's < .18and .001, for girls and boys, respectively).The correlations were very similar whenchildren's social desirability scores, whichwere not significantly related to any indexesof vicarious emotional responding, were par-tialed in the analyses.^

Relations of Parental Variables to Indexesof Children's Emotional Reactivity

The relations of parental characteristicsand reported emotion-related socializationpractices to indexes of vicarious emotionalresponding were examined with partial cor-relations. In all of these analyses, age of thechild and parent's (mother's or father's) edu-cation were partialed. (Maternal educationwas partialed because mothers' educationwas associated with leniency on PACES-

' Moreover, the sympathy-evoking film seemed to elicit sympathy. According to 2 (sex) x2 (order) x 2 (grade) x 2 (set) x 2 (film) repeated-measures MANOVAs, children reported moresympathy and less distress in response to the sympathy film, p's < .004, and exhibited lesspersonal distress while watching the sympathy film, p < .05. All five standardized indexes of SCwere higher for the distress film than for the sympathy film, p < .044 for the frequency indexand p's < .001 for the other indexes (although this pattem was considerably stronger for theolder children). Finally, according to a trend analysis using the critical (evocative) portions ofthe two films, HR accelerated significantly in the distressing film, p < .001, but not the sympathyfilm.


Hurtful scores, r[117] = - .20, p < .033, and, differences by age; thus, the two age groupsfor girls, with maternal perspective taking were combined in the analyses and the ef-[PT] and sympathy [EC], r's[51] = .32, .27, feet of grade was partialed in the analyses,and .28, p's < .018, .048, and .044, respec- In line with this decision, age was infre-tively, and fathers' education was related to quently related to any child or parental vari-leniency on PACES-Hurtfiil scores and high ables. In contrast, girls were higher thanPT, r's[70 and 71] = - .36 and .36, p's < boys on self-reported sympathy and disposi-.002.) In analyses involving verbal, facial, tional sympathy and empathy, p's < .057,HR, or SC reactions to the film, order of .08, and .001; boys were higher on self-tapes and perspective-taking set also were monitoring, p < .001; and parents discussedpartialed. Two-tailed tests are reported for emotional reactions (interview measure)all analyses. In all analyses involving HR, more with daughters than sons, p < .044.the index was mean HR during the most _, . . r ^ievocative section of the film minus mean HR . . Characteristics of parents .-Character-during the neutral portion of the film. '^^'^^ "^ P^''^"*^ mcluded dispositiona ma-

ternal and paternal sympathy, personal dis-Because parents may socialize emo- tress, and perspective taking (M's and SDs

tional responding differently for boys and for mothers = 4.19 [.53], 2.38 [.72], and 3.67girls (Brody, 1985; Dunn, Bretherton, & [.64]; for fathers, 3.71 [.65], 2.33 [.76], andMunn, 1987), and maternal correlates of 3.63 [.60], respectively) and, for interview-sympathy appear to differ for boys and girls ees only, valuing sympathy (M and SD =(Fabes et al., 1990), separate analyses were 3.68 and .79). These characteristics were cor-computed for girls and boys. In addition, pe- related with the indexes of emotional re-rusal of the data indicated that the differ- sponding, dispositional sympathy (CEC),ences between the patterns of findings for and empathy (Bryant scale; see Table 1 forgirls and boys were more marked than any means for children's measures).

TABLE 1

MEANS (and Standard Deviations) FOR CHILDREN'S VARIARLES

Cirls Boys

HR change* -2.068 -1.282(5.164) (5.239)

SC composite'' 394 -.391(4.329) (4.778)

Self-reported reactions:'^Negative mood -.897 -.730

(1.870) (1.710)Sympathy 3.580 3.251

(.917) (1.012)Distress 1.776 1.826

(.774) (.790)Facial personal distress"* -.094 -.080

(.317) (.304)Dispositional sympathy (CEC)'= 10.690 9.924

(2.528) (2.327)Dispositional empathy' 15.053 12.896

(2.774) (2.860)Self-monitoring^ 8.558 9.962

(2.501) (2.210)Social desirability*" 3.810 3.275

(1.670) (1.910)" HR in critical period minus lead-in period."> SC was standardized across the sample as weil as within individuals.° Potential range of ratings = 1 to 5. Negative mood was sadness

minus happiness."* Average responding per 5-sec period for facial distress minus mean

baseline responding.' Potential range = 3-15.'Potential range = 0-21.« Potential range = 0-16.^ Potential range = 0-10.


There were relatively few significantcorrelations between the characteristics ofother-sex parents and the children's indexes.Maternal perspective taking was negativelyrelated to boys' facial personal distress, par-tial r(48) = - .28, p < .048, whereas mater-nal sympathy was positively related to boys'dispositional sympathy, partial r(53) = .42,p < .002. For girls, fathers' perspective tak-ing was associated with HR decelerationduring the most evocative portion of thefilm, partial r(26) = - .37, p < .05.

In contrast, there were more significantcorrelations between same-sex parental sym-pathy and offsprings' emotional responding(see Table 2). Maternal sympathy and val-uing of sympathy (most of the data for thelatter were from mothers) tended to be as-sociated with girls' low personal distress (asassessed with non-self-report indexes). Inaddition, mothers high in perspective takinghad daughters that exhibited more HR de-celeration, partial r(46) = - .38, p < .008;this finding parallels that for fathers anddaughters (see above). For boys, sons offathers who reported being sympatheticexhibited low levels of facial distress andscored relatively high on indexes of disposi-tional sympathy and empathy (see Table 2).

Parental socialization techniques.—The indexes of parental socialization tech-niques were the PACES-Hurtful subscale(M's and SDs were 2.29 and .46 for mothersand 2.40 and .40 for fathers), the maternalPACES-Self subscale (M and SD were 1.94and .30), and the parents' responses to the

interview. As for parental sympathy,PACES-Hurtful scores were primarily re-lated to indexes for same-sex children. Forboth sexes, same-sex parental restrictivenessin regard to hurtful displays of emotion waspositively correlated with dispositional sym-pathy and reports of sympathetic reactionsto the film (see Table 3). In addition, boys'dispositional empathy was positively relatedto fathers' restrictiveness regarding theirchildren's hurtful displays.

In contrast, the findings regarding pa-rental restrictiveness and emphasis in regardto controlling emotions that are not likely tobe hurtful to others were primarily for boys.Mothers' restrictiveness in regard to thechild's self-related emotional displays waspositively related to boys' HR acceleration,SC, and facial distress (p < .057 for the latter,two-tailed test). However, although the boysexhibited physiological and facial distress,they reported that they were less distressedthan were other boys (see Table 3). In addi-tion, parental emphasis on control (not nec-essarily accompanied by restrictiveness), asassessed in the interview, was associatedwith low levels of boys' dispositional sympa-thy (and marginally with reports of less neg-ative mood in response to viewing the film).

The numbers of correlations that weresignificant for the categories of positive sup-port and discuss were at chance levels andtherefore are not included in Table 3. How-ever, consistent with our predictions, par-ents who emphasized problem solving whenboys felt badly had sons who exhibited less

TABLE 2

PARTIAL CORRELATIONS BETWEEN PARENTAL CHARACTERISTICS AND CHILDREN'SVICARIOUS EMOTIONAL RESPONDING

BOYS

Mothers' Parental Fathers' ParentalSympathy Valuing of Sympathy Valuing of

CHILD INDEXES (EC) Sympathy" (EC) Sympathy"

HR -.27+ -.24 -.16 .03SC - .33* -.34* .02 .09Facial personal distress -.42** - . 31* -.37** .00Dispositional sympathy .11 .19 .34* .06Dispositional empathy -.04 .11 .42** - .19Self-monitoring -.04 .16 .35* - .16

NOTE.—See text for discussion of what was partialed for the various indexes. There wereno significant correlations for self-report situational indexes.

' Data are from the parent (mother or father) interviewed. All but 11 of the parents inter-viewed were mothers.

+ p < .10.* p < .05.**p < .01.

W

n

-S>II en

o

sCQ

S W-fi

* * + *

l I l

I I I I

;D IN oO • * O -

I I I I I


SC response to the film, reported more nega-tive mood and sympathy (p < .056 for thelatter), and reported higher levels of disposi-tional sympathy.

Self-MonitoringIn a final set of analyses we examined

the relation of children's self-monitoring(which was higher for boys than girls, p <.001) to parental characteristics and prac-tices. Mothers high in personal distress haddaughters who were low self-monitors, par-tial r(49) = - .33, p < .018. In contrast, pa-ternal sympathy was positively related toboys' self-monitoring (see Table 2). In re-gard to parental emotion-related practices,parental reports of encouraging children tochange or control their negative feelingswere associated with high self-monitoringfor both girls and boys (see Table 3). In addi-tion, for girls only, high self-monitoring waspositively associated with paternal restric-tiveness in regard to the display of poten-tially hurtful emotions, r(25) = .61, p < .001.Finally, the results were very similar whenthe entire self-monitoring scale (which wasless reliable than the subgroup of items weused) was used in the analyses.

Discussion

The results of the present study are con-sistent with the view that parental character-istics and practices are associated with chil-dren's vicarious emotional responding. Withregard to the former, it was primarily the dis-positional sympathy of the same-sex parentthat was associated with children's vicariousresponses. Specifically, parental sympathytended to be negatively related to markersof personal distress in same-sex offspringand, for both parents, positively associatedwith sons' reported dispositional sympathy.In addition, fathers' sympathy was positivelycorrelated with sons' dispositional empathy.Thus, sympathetic parents seemed to havechildren who were relatively unlikely to ex-perience personal distress when confrontedwith a sympathy-eliciting situation (i.e.,with others' negative emotions or situation)and sons who viewed themselves as sympa-thetic. This pattern of findings is consistentwith the assumption that sympathetic par-ents help their children to cope effectivelywith their emotions when they are dis-tressed. Consequently, these children areless likely to become easily overaroused anddistressed by mild or moderate emotionalstimuli involving other people and, conse-quently, may sometimes be more likely thanother children to experience sympathy. It is

also possible that sympathetic parents modela relatively calm style of dealing with others'distress that is imitated by same-sex chil-dren. Moreover, correlations between par-ents' and children's measures may be due inpart to genetic influences (e.g., geneticallybased individual differences in emotionalarousability may afFect the tendency to expe-rience personal distress).

It is unclear why maternal sympathywas not more highly related to girls' sympa-thy (as in Fabes et al., 1990). Reported ma-ternal sympathy in this well-educated sam-ple was quite high (M = 4.19 on a five-pointscale), and the variance in these scores wasfairly low (SD = .53). Therefore, there werevery few low-sympathy mothers in this sam-ple, which may have attenuated or pre-cluded some relations between markers ofmothers' and girls' sympathy. Alternatively,perhaps mothers who are extremely sympa-thetic do not set enough guidelines and con-trols to induce their daughters to learn waysof channeling their own emotional reactionsin an other-oriented manner. Such a conclu-sion is consistent with literature indicatingthat (a) permissive parenting sometimes isnot associated with high levels of social re-sponsibility (Baumrind, 1971), (b) noncon-tingent warmth often is not related to chil-dren's performance of costly prosocialbehaviors (Weissbrod, 1976; see Moore &Eisenberg, 1984), and (c) a moderate degreeof parental encouragement of children's ex-pression of emotion has been associatedwith children's social competence (Roberts& Strayer, 1987).

In addition, the findings in regard to therelation of parental practices to children's vi-carious emotional responding support thenotion that parents' reactions to children'sdisplays of emotion influence children'svicarious emotional reactivity. Althoughparents in this sample were not highly re-strictive, consistent with prior unpublishedfindings (Fabes et al., 1988), those parentswho were relatively restrictive of inappro-priate and potentially hurtful emotional dis-plays had same-sex children who reportedhigh levels of dispositional sympathy andsympathy in the experimental context. Ifself-regulation is seen as contributing tochildren's sympathetic tendencies (Eisen-berg, Bernzweig, & Fabes, in press), thesedata can be viewed as consistent with Fesh-bach's (1987) data indicating a negative rela-tion between maternal leniency in regard tooffsprings' expression of emotion and chil-dren's self-control.

In contrast, parental emphasis (in the in-terview) on sons' controlling of their ownsadness and anxiety—emotions that gen-erally are not harmful to others—was as-sociated with low situational sympathy. Inaddition, maternal restrictiveness (i.e., au-thoritarian control) in this regard was posi-tively correlated with several indexes ofboys' personal distress and negatively re-lated to boys' reports. These data are consis-tent with the finding that a moderate degreeof parental encouragement of children'sexpression of emotion is associated withchildren's social competence (Roberts &Strayer, 1987). Furthermore, the data sup-port Buck's (1984) argument that childrenwho receive negative reactions when theyrespond emotionally may learn to deny orsuppress their emotional reactions and to ex-perience anxiety internally. The fact that ourfindings in regard to the control of self-related emotions were primarily for boys isnot surprising given cultural norms regard-ing the importance of males' inhibition ofemotion (Brody, 1985) and Buck's (1984)finding that males are more likely than fe-males to express emotion internally.

Interestingly, although children's self-monitoring was associated with parental em-phasis on controlling one's negative emo-tions (for both sexes) and hurtful emotionaldisplays (for girls), it was not correlated withauthoritarian, restrictive parental practicesin regard to children's displays of emotion.Parental concern over the expression ofemotion, if it is not punitive, may serve tofoster children's awareness and attention toself-presentational issues, whereas sanctionsfor emotionality may serve merely to teachchildren to hide their feelings. In addition,mothers who exhibited less emotional con-trol in situations involving others' distress(i.e., who were high on personal distress)had daughters low on self-monitoring; thisrelation may be due to girls' modeling theirmothers' tendencies to react emotionally orto genetically acquired dispositions to expe-rience affective arousal.

Although parents' reports of using sup-portive practices to deal with children's anx-iety and sadness were infrequently relatedto indexes of children's vicarious emotionalresponding, parental use of problem solvingin anxiety-inducing or sad contexts was asso-ciated with low SC reactivity to the film forboys, boys' reports of negative mood andsympathy {p < .056 for the latter), and dispo-sitional sympathy. Thus, consistent withShure's (1982) arguments regarding the role


of interpersonal problem-solving skills in so-cial development, parents who helped theirsons find constructive ways to deal withanxiety-producing situations appeared tohave sons who were particularly likely to ex-perience sympathy. Boys who have learnedinstrumental coping strategies may be rela-tively competent at regulating their own dis-tress, with the consequence that they aremore likely to experience sympathy thanpersonal distress. Problem-solving skillsmay be particularly relevant for boys eitherbecause of cultural prohibitions on males'overt expressions of anxiety or because in-strumental modes of responding to others'distress are deemed more appropriate formales (e.g., males are more likely than fe-males to provide instrumental help to oth-ers; Eagly & Crowley, 1986).

It is not surprising that parents' discus-sions with their children when the childrenwere distressed or sad were unrelated to vi-carious responding. The content of discus-sions may be more critical than whether ornot the parent talks with the child. More-over, parental warmth and reassurances (i.e.,positive support) when the child feels badmay do little to focus the child's attention ofothers' emotional states and does not involveteaching children strategies that can be usedto cope with distressing or sad situations.Consistent with our findings, Zahn-Waxler,Radke-Yarrow, and King (1979) found littlerelation between young children's prosocialbehavior and mothers' reassurance and sup-port of the child and matter-of-fact explana-tions in situations in which a child viewedor caused another's distress.

An additional finding was that for girls,maternal and paternal perspective takingwere associated with HR deceleration whilethe girls viewed the most sympathy-induc-ing portion of the film. If HR deceleration isviewed as reflecting an outward orientationand the taking in of information from the en-vironment (Cacioppo & Sandman, 1978),this finding is consistent with the conclusionthat maternal perspective taking is associ-ated with girls' tendencies to be other-focused in sympathy-inducing contexts.However, it is not clear why a similar patternof findings was not obtained for boys.

A secondary goal of tlie present studywas to examine the usefulness of children'sSC responsivity as a marker of vicariousemotional responding. Skin conductanceduring the sympathy film was positively re-lated to girls' facial personal distress and


negatively related to self-reported dispo-sitional sympathy. Moreover, as has beenfound for adults (Eisenberg, Fabes et al., inpress), children (especially older children)exhibited more and higher SC in responseto the distressing film (see footnote 1). Thus,our data, albeit inconclusive, suggest that SCreactivity frequently may reflect personaldistress reactions, particularly for girls. Ad-ditional research is needed to examine thegeneralizability of our findings.

In summary, in the present study wefound that fathers' as well as mothers' sym-pathy was associated with the vicarious emo-tional responding of their children. In ad-dition, we obtained empirical verificationthat the ways parents deal with children'semotional displays are related to children'svicarious emotional responding and self-monitoring. Parental restrictiveness in re-gard to hurtful displays of emotion wasassociated with sympathy, whereas restric-tiveness in regard to the child's own emotionwas associated with facial and physiologicalindexes of personal distress but relativelylittle report of such distress. Furthermore,parental emphasis on controlling emotionaldisplays was associated with self-monitor-ing. These findings suggest that the social-ization of emotional self-regulation plays animportant role in the development of empa-thy and related responses. However, it is im-portant to note that our sample was of rela-tively high socioeconomic status; futureresearch is needed to see whether these re-sults can be generalized to other popula-tions.

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The Relations of Parental Characteristics and Practices to Children's Vicarious Emotional Responding

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