Manczak Erika M, DeLongis Anita, Chen Edith
Department of Psychology, Northwestern University.
Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia.
Health Psychol. 2016 Mar;35(3):211-8. doi: 10.1037/hea0000281. Epub 2015 Sep 7.
Parental empathy is associated with a host of beneficial psychosocial outcomes for children. However, less is known about the effects of being empathic for parents. The current study tested the hypothesis that, although parental empathy may be beneficial to children both psychologically and physiologically, it may take a physiological toll on parents.
The current study examined psychological and physiological correlates of parental empathy in 247 parent-adolescent dyads. During a baseline laboratory visit, parents and adolescents provide blood samples from which markers of systemic inflammation, including interleukin 1-ra, interleukin 6, and C-reactive protein, were assayed. Parents completed self-report questionnaires of empathy, well-being, and self-esteem, and also reported on their child's emotion regulation. Following the laboratory visit, adolescents completed 2 weeks of daily diary reporting on their emotion regulation abilities.
In adolescents, parental empathy was significantly associated with both better emotion regulation and with less systemic inflammation. For parents, being empathic was associated with greater self-esteem and purpose in life, but also with higher systemic inflammation.
These findings reinforce the importance of simultaneously considering both psychological and physical health-related effects of psychosocial traits and suggests that empathy may have diverging effects across providers and recipients of empathy.
父母的同理心与一系列对孩子有益的心理社会结果相关。然而，对于父母具有同理心的影响，我们了解得较少。当前的研究检验了这样一个假设：尽管父母的同理心可能在心理和生理上对孩子有益，但它可能会给父母带来生理上的损耗。
当前的研究调查了247对父母 - 青少年二元组中父母同理心的心理和生理相关性。在基线实验室访视期间，父母和青少年提供血样，从中检测全身炎症标志物，包括白细胞介素1受体拮抗剂、白细胞介素6和C反应蛋白。父母完成了关于同理心、幸福感和自尊的自我报告问卷，并报告了他们孩子的情绪调节情况。实验室访视后，青少年完成了为期2周的关于他们情绪调节能力的每日日记报告。
在青少年中，父母的同理心与更好的情绪调节以及更少的全身炎症显著相关。对于父母来说，具有同理心与更高的自尊和生活目标相关，但也与更高的全身炎症相关。
这些发现强化了同时考虑心理社会特质对心理和身体健康相关影响的重要性，并表明同理心可能对同理心提供者和接受者产生不同的影响。
