The association between mothering behaviors and empathy in European-American and Asian-American emerging adults

Empathy is an essential component of positive human interaction driven in part by parenting. Most research on parents' role in empathy focuses on child and adolescent samples. Thus, the present study examined the relations between current maternal behaviors (warmth and behavioral control) and empathic concern of European-American and Asian-American college-going emerging adults residing in the U.S. Gender (male/female) was explored as a moderator. Participants included 606 (69.6% women, 79.5% European American) undergraduate students ages 18-29. Gender and ethnic differences were observed: (a) emerging-adult women reported greater levels of empathy than did emerging-adult men, and (b) European Americans reported greater levels of empathy than did Asian Americans. Maternal warmth was related positively to empathy, maternal behavioral control was related negatively to empathy, and Maternal Warmth x Gender was significant with the maternal warmth-empathy relation being stronger for men than women. Implications and future directions are discussed.