Parental attachment representations and children’s prosocial behavior: The role of parental empathy

Prosocial behavior, defined as intrinsically or extrinsically motivated voluntary actions that benefit others (Spinrad & Gal, 2018), usually emerges within the second year of life (Brownell et al., 2013). Parental socialization of prosocial behavior may be facilitated by secure parent-child attachment (Gross et al., 2017). Less is known about how parents’ attachment representations relate to children’s prosocial behavior, or about the potential role of parental empathy in mediating this association. The current study aimed to fill these gaps in the literature using a community sample of parent-child dyads (n = 110) followed from toddlerhood into preschool age (M = 3.91 years). We hypothesized that parental attachment, indexed using secure base script knowledge assessed during toddlerhood, would positively relate to parent-reported prosocial behavior as well as children’s prosocial responses to conflict vignettes during preschool. Additionally, we hypothesized that parental empathy rated from semi-structured interviews during the assessment age would act as a mediator between parental attachment and prosocial behavior. Our hypotheses were partially supported: parental attachment predicted parents’ cognitive, affective, and overall empathy, as well as children’s prosocial behavior responses. Although parental cognitive empathy was positively associated with children’s prosocial responses to conflict vignettes, parental affective empathy was negatively associated with prosocial responding. Parental attachment had a significant indirect effect on children’s prosocial behavior through affective empathy, but not cognitive or overall empathy; unexpectedly, this indirect effect was negative. Future research is needed to clarify longitudinal relationships between parental attachment, parental empathy, and prosocial behavior.