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Cited by 216Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional DevelopmentAttachment and Relationship DynamicsChild and Animal Learning Development

Linking parent–child and peer relationship quality to empathy in adolescence: A multilevel meta–analysis

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Boele, Savannah, Van der Graaff, Jolien, de Wied, Minet, Van der Valk, Inge E., Crocetti, Elisabetta, Branje, Susan·2019·Journal of Youth and Adolescence
DOI 10.1007/s10964-019-00993-5PMC PMC6525137
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Abstract

Empathy, which is the ability to feel concern for and to understand others' feelings, is thought to develop in high quality relationships with parent and peers, but also to facilitate the quality of these relationships. While a wide literature has addressed this aspect, the heterogeneity of primary studies, in which different indicators of relationship quality (e.g., support, conflict) and empathy (i.e., affective and cognitive) have been examined, makes it difficult to draw conclusive answers. Therefore, it remained ambiguous how parent-child and peer relationship quality are associated with adolescents' empathy. In order to increase the understanding of these associations, a multilevel meta-analysis was performed, which allowed for including multiple effect sizes from each study. By a systematic literate search, 70 eligible studies were found that provided 390 effect sizes from 75 independent samples. The results showed a small positive correlation between parent-child relationship quality and empathy, and a small-to-moderate positive correlation between peer relationship quality and empathy, which was significantly stronger than the correlation with parent-child relationship quality. Hence, the meta-analytic results indicate that adolescents with higher quality relationships, especially with peers, indeed tend to show more concern for and understanding of others' emotions than adolescents with lower quality relationships. Moreover, the moderation analyses showed stronger correlations for the positive dimension of relationship quality than for the negative dimension, and stronger correlations for composite scores of affective and cognitive empathy than for separate scores of the empathy dimensions. However, no differences in correlations were found between the affective and cognitive empathy dimension, and no moderation effects were found for gender and age. Thus, this meta-analysis demonstrates robust positive associations between parent-child and peer relationship quality and empathy in adolescence, implying that good empathic abilities may be a protective factor for experiencing poor relationships.

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  • Previous empirical studies found that the cognitive and affective dimensions of empathy exerted different effects on various positive and negative behaviors. Generally, cognitive empathy had closer ties to other variables.

    “Previous empirical studies also found that the cognitive and affective dimensions of empathy exerted different effects on various positive and negative behaviors. Generally, cognitive empathy had closer ties to other variables [45,46].”

    From The Relationship between Empathy and Attachment in Children and Adolescents: Three-Level Meta-Analyses. (2022) · cites this paper as [46]

    The Introduction (Relationship Quality and Empathy; page not provided) says prior research found different associations between affective and cognitive empathy and social functioning, broadly supporting the first point. But the Discussion (Explaining Heterogeneity with Moderators; page not provided) says the two dimensions were similarly related to relationship quality; it does not support the generalization that cognitive empathy has closer ties to other variables. (LLM, conf=0.86)

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  1. Humfress H O’Connor TG Slaughter J Target M Fonagy P General and relationship–specific models of social cognition: Explaining the overlap and discrepancies Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 2002 43 873 883 12405476

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Authors
Boele, S., Van der Graaff, J., de Wied, M., Van der Valk, I. E., Crocetti, E., & Branje, S.
Affiliations
  • Tilburg University (NL)
  • University of Bologna (IT)
  • Utrecht University (NL)
Corresponding author
Boele, Savannah
ORCID
Venue
Journal of Youth and Adolescence
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2019-02-27
Volume
48
Issue
6
Pages
1033-1055
ISSN
  • 0047-2891 (ISSN-L)
  • 1573-6601
DOI
10.1007/s10964-019-00993-5
PMC
PMC6525137
OpenAlex
W2920732182
Cited by
216
References
135
Citations by year
2026: 25 · 2025: 42 · 2024: 41 · 2023: 37 · 2022: 33 · 2021: 25 · 2020: 8 · 2019: 4
FWCI
2.77
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Journal of Youth and Adolescence (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Research portal (Tilburg University) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
  • Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
  • Archivio istituzionale della ricerca (Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • Utrecht University Repository (Utrecht University) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Attachment and Relationship Dynamics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
Keywords
empathy, parent-child relationship, peer relationships, relationship quality, affective empathy, cognitive empathy, adolescents, social support, relationship conflict, protective factors
MeSH terms
Adolescent, Psychology, Adolescent, Empathy, Humans, Interpersonal Relations, Parent-Child Relations, Peer Group, Models, Statistical

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