Diagnosis of empathy and aggression of teenagers in the context of parental attitudes

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to investigate the relationship between parental attitudes, empathy, and aggression of adolescent children. Two hundred and one Polish students in age 16 – 18 years participated in this study (57% were girls), they brought up in a full family. IRI (Davis, 1983) was used to measure empathy, Buss & Perry Aggression Questionnaire (1993) was used to measure aggression, and Polish scale KPR-Roc (Plopa, 2008) was used to measure retrospective parenting styles in terms of five attitudes: acceptance/rejection, requirements, autonomy, inconsistencies and overprotecting. The results of these studies show that there is a relationship between parenting attitudes and levels of empathy and aggressive behaviours in children. The ability to take someone perspective and empathic concern by sons and daughters mainly depends on the attitudes of the same gender parent. For the level of daughters’ empathy, the predictions turned out to be mothers' attitudes, while the level of empathy of sons was explained by the fathers’ attitudes. Moreover, lack of positive attitudes of fathers and the intensification of negative, influences on the inability to cope with their own emotions by young people of both genders and increase their personal distress. Diagnosis of youthful aggression was considered in the context of positive and negative parental attitudes that can promote or inhibit the aggressiveness of their children. Positive and negative attitudes of both parents were important for the level of aggression of children depending on the type of aggressive action. The direct aggression of girls was influenced by the negative attitudes of both parents, and indirect aggression was explained mainly by the attitudes of fathers. In boys, for the level of physical and verbal aggression, the attitudes of mothers turned out to be important, while for indirect aggression like anger and hostility – mainly fathers' attitudes. Studies confirm that both mother and father play an important role in shaping the appropriate social skills of their child. There is a distinct relationship between mothers’ and fathers’ attitudes and empathic/aggressive behaviour of their children.