Department of Pediatrics, Division of Adolescent Medicine, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, MA, United States of America.
Department of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2023 Nov 22;18(11):e0293473. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0293473. eCollection 2023.
Empathy is at the core of our social world, yet multidomain factors that affect its development in socially sensitive periods, such as adolescence, are incompletely understood. To address this gap, this study investigated associations between social, environmental and mental health factors, and their temporal changes, on adolescent empathetic behaviors/emotions and, for comparison, callous unemotional (CU) traits and behaviors, in the early longitudinal Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development sample (baseline: n = 11062; 2-year follow-up: n = 9832, median age = 119 and 144 months, respectively). Caregiver affection towards the youth, liking school, having a close friend, and importance of religious beliefs/spirituality in the youth's life were consistently positively correlated with empathetic behaviors/emotions across assessments (p<0.001, Cohen's f = ~0.10). Positive family dynamics and cohesion, living in a neighborhood that shared the family's values, but also parent history of substance use and (aggregated) internalizing problems were additionally positively associated with one or more empathetic behaviors at follow-up (p<0.001, f = ~0.10). In contrast, externalizing problems, anxiety, depression, fear of social situations, and being withdrawn were negatively associated with empathetic behaviors and positively associated with CU traits and behaviors (p<0.001, f = ~0.1-0.44). The latter were also correlated with being cyberbullied and/or discriminated against, anhedonia, and impulsivity, and their interactions with externalizing and internalizing issues. Significant positive temporal correlations of behaviors at the two assessments indicated positive (early) developmental empathetic behavior trajectories, and negative CU traits' trajectories. Negative changes in mental health adversely moderated positive trajectories and facilitated negative ones. These findings highlight that adolescent empathetic behaviors/emotions are positively related to multidomain protective social environmental factors, but simultaneously adversely associated with risk factors in the same domains, as well as bully victimization, discrimination, and mental health problems. Risk factors instead facilitate the development of CU traits and behaviors.
同理心是我们社会世界的核心，但影响其在社会敏感时期（如青春期）发展的多领域因素仍不完全清楚。为了弥补这一空白，本研究调查了社会、环境和心理健康因素及其时间变化与青少年同理心行为/情感的关系，并进行了比较，还研究了冷酷无情（CU）特征和行为，研究对象为早期纵向青少年大脑认知发展样本（基线：n = 11062；2 年随访：n = 9832，中位数年龄分别为 119 和 144 个月）。照顾者对青少年的喜爱、喜欢上学、有亲密的朋友以及青少年生活中宗教信仰/精神的重要性与同理心行为/情感在整个评估过程中呈正相关（p<0.001，Cohen 的 f = ~0.10）。积极的家庭动态和凝聚力、居住在与家庭价值观相同的社区，以及父母有物质使用史和（综合）内化问题也与随访时的一种或多种同理心行为呈正相关（p<0.001，f = ~0.10）。相反，外化问题、焦虑、抑郁、对社交情境的恐惧和退缩与同理心行为呈负相关，与 CU 特征和行为呈正相关（p<0.001，f = ~0.1-0.44）。后者还与网络欺凌和/或歧视、快感缺失和冲动行为以及它们与外化和内化问题的相互作用有关。两次评估中行为的显著正时间相关性表明了积极的（早期）发展同理心行为轨迹，以及消极的 CU 特征轨迹。心理健康的负面变化对积极轨迹产生了不利影响，促进了消极轨迹的形成。这些发现强调，青少年同理心行为/情感与多领域保护社会环境因素呈正相关，但同时与同一领域的风险因素以及欺凌受害者、歧视和心理健康问题呈负相关。风险因素反而促进了 CU 特征和行为的发展。
