Relationship Between Adolescents’ Perceived Reasonable Parental Explanation and Empathy: Mediating Effects of Parental Attachment and Adolescents’ Self-Esteem

Objectives: This study examined the relationship between empathy and parenting behavior among adolescents. Specifically, we examined the sequential mediating effects of parental attachment (maternal and paternal attachment respectively) and adolescents’ self-esteem on the relationship between reasonable parental explanations and adolescents’ empathy.Methods: The study included 589 first-year middle school students surveyed in 2021 from the 14th Wave of the Panel Study on Korean Children, produced by the Korea Institute of Child Care and Education. The adolescents responded to questions on reasonal parental explanations, parental attachment, self-esteem, and empathy. Their parents responded to socioeconomic variables, and their teachers responded on adolescent’s academic performance. Data were analyzed using SPSS 28.0, PROCESS macro version 4.2, and Model 6 was used to examine the sequential mediating effects. Bootstrapping method was used to examine indirect effects.Results: Adolescents’ perceptions of reasonable parental explanations were relatively high, as was their attachment to their fathers and mothers. Adolescents’ self-esteem and empathy were slightly above average. Additionally, the results indicated that adolescents’ perceptions of reasonable parental explanations and their empathy had a positive relationship. Specifically, their relationship was explained through the mediation of attachment to both father and mother, and adolescents’ self-esteem, after controlling for adolescents’ gender, academic performance, and monthly household income.Conclusion: These findings contribute to a deeper understanding of the internal and external factors influencing adolescents’ empathy, serving as a foundation for interventions aimed at enhancing empathy and suggesting policies to improve parenting behaviors and parent-child attachment among parents of adolescents.