Predictors of empathy and markers of performance among United States military Academy cadets: The role of emotional integration and father warmth

The United States Military Academy's mission is to develop leaders of character. Such leaders are characterized by having high levels of moral character traits such as empathy and by having high levels of academic/military training performance. For this reason, factors that facilitate these outcomes are of high interest. One such factor may be <i>emotional integration</i>-the extent to which one has a differentiated awareness of one's emotions while having an accepting and interested stance toward them. Here, across two studies, we examined whether emotional integration predicted <i>empathy</i> and <i>markers of performance</i> among West Point cadets, and the extent to which <i>experiences with parents</i> might underpin the development of emotional integration skills. Participants in Study 1 were 170 cadets and in Study 2 were 192 cadets who completed psychometric measures of relevant variables. Results in Study 1 showed father warmth to be a particularly strong correlate of emotional integration, which in turn was correlated with empathy. Study 2 replicated these findings and showed emotional integration also to be predictive of markers of academic and military training performance. These findings highlight the potential value of developing emotional integration abilities and a key factor that might underpin these abilities. Implications for leader development programs are shared along with recommendations for future research.