Sympathy in the context of mother-child and teacher-child relationships

Abstract

Two studies were carried out to investigate relations between socialisation influences, person variables, and sympathy, as well as prosocial behaviour in 5-year-old preschool children. Specifically, we were interested in the interactions between child characteristics (sex, inhibition toward strangers) and the socialisation practices of child care teachers (Study I) and mothers’ caregiving style (Study II). Participants in Study I were 105 five-year-old children who were confronted with the simulated distress of a puppet; 25 teachers were observed while interacting with the children during free play, and 93 parents rated their child’s inhibition. Participants in Study II were 79 five-year-old children and their mothers. As in Study I, the children’s reactions to distress were observed. The mothers rated their child’s inhibition and participated in an interview to assess the quality of their caregiving style. Positive, albeit weak, relations occurred between child care teachers’ warmth and children’s sympathetic-prosocial reactions to distress; no direct effects emerged for maternal behaviour. Negative, albeit weak, associations were found between inhibition and sympathetic-prosocial reactions. These relations improved when interactions between sex, inhibition, and the caregiving style of the teachers (but not of the mothers) were taken into account. The results are discussed with regard to the context-specificity of socialisation.