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The Determinants and Consequences of Empathic Parenting THE DETERMINANTS AND CONSEQUENCES OF EMPATHIC PARENTING: TESTING AN EXPANSION OF BELSKY'S MODEL OF PARENTING USING SEM Margaret K. Morse, B.A., M.S. Dissertation Prepared for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS May 2010 APPROVED: Patricia L. Kaminski, Major Professor and Director, Counseling Psychology Program Sue C. Bratton, Committee Member Shelley A. Riggs, Committee Member Vicki Campbell, Committee Member and Chair, Department of Psychology Michael Monticino, Dean of the Robert B. Toulouse School of Graduate Studies Morse, Margaret K. The determinants and consequences of empathic parenting: Testing an expansion of Belsky’s model of parenting using SEM. Doctor of Philosophy (Counseling Psychology), May 2010, 233 pp., 6 figures, 28 tables, references, 341 titles. An understanding of factors that enhance empathic parenting behaviors is of considerable importance to the study of child development and to the development of parenting interventions to promote child adjustment. Moreover, gaining a better understanding of the factors that predict empathic parenting with older children is of interest since most research examining parental empathy focuses on infants. These were the goals of the current study. Guided by Belsky’s 1984 process model of the determinants of parenting that impact child development, an expanded model of the determinants of parenting is proposed that includes various parent, child, and contextual factors of influence. Using data from a community sample, a partial least squares path analysis approach was employed to test the model’s strength in predicting empathically attuned parenting with children ages 5 to 10 years and, ultimately, the child’s psychoemotional functioning. Results support the expanded model; however, a reduced model was found to be superior and revealed unique relationships between the determinants of parenting. Specifically, a parent’s psychoemotional functioning and childrearing beliefs and attitudes were found to be critical to the parent’s ability to engage in empathic parenting behaviors. Other parent factors such as the parent’s developmental history of abuse, maladaptive personality traits, and age, along with contextual factors and child characteristics, were found to influence parenting only indirectly through their impact on the parent’s level of psychoemotional distress or childrearing beliefs and attitudes. Ultimately, the current findings support Belsky’s claim that parent factors are the strongest predictors of empathic parenting. Implications of these findings are many. The results highlight the importance of assessing a parent’s childrearing beliefs and attitudes and level of distress in conjunction with characteristics of the child when a family comes in for treatment. Moreover, the results identify many points of intervention to stopping the cycle of abuse. Copyright 2010 by Margaret K. Morse ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This project has been ten years in the making, and I could not have done it without the help and encouragement of many. I would particularly like to thank my chair, Patricia Kaminski, PhD, for not giving up on me and seeing this project through to the end and to my other committee members, Sue Bratton, PhD, Vicki Campbell, PhD, and Shelley Riggs, PhD, for their patience, interest, and insights. I would also like to thank Richard Herrington for leading me down the rabbit hole of statistics and helping me make sense of my data and gain confidence in my understanding of my data analysis. There is also the work and collaboration of many colleagues and undergraduate researchers that I would like to acknowledge, particularly that of Micki Burns, PhD, Aubrey Austin, MS, Jane Jooste, PhD, Cicely LaBorde, MS, Linda Casto, MS, Arlene Rivero, PhD, Patrick Turnock, PhD, Maggie Hollyfield, PhD, Angela McKenna, MS, Rebecca Lloyd, MS, Christy Beifus, and Jennifer Huynh. On a more personal note, I would like to acknowledge the constant love and encouragement I received from my husband, parents, and friends throughout this process. And to Sam, my baby boy - May the time spent away from you to complete this project be a distant memory…Now let‟s go play! iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ......................................................................................................... iii LIST OF TABLES .................................................................................................................... vii LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................... ix CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................. 1 A Multidetermined, Process-Oriented Model of Parenting ........................................................ 3 Positive Parenting ................................................................................................................... 4 Measurement of Empathically Attuned Parenting. ............................................................. 8 Parent Factors and Empathically Attuned Parenting ............................................................ 12 Parent‟s Developmental History. ...................................................................................... 15 Parent Personality. ............................................................................................................ 19 Parent Psychoemotional Functioning. ............................................................................ 24 Childrearing Beliefs and Attitudes.................................................................................... 27 Parent Age. ........................................................................................................................ 30 Child Factors and Empathically Attuned Parenting.............................................................. 31 Temperament .................................................................................................................... 32 Children With Special Needs: Physical, Mental, and Behavioral Difficulties ................. 35 Contextual Factors and Empathically Attuned Parenting ..................................................... 38 Sources of Emotional Support and Stress ......................................................................... 42 Sources of Instrumental/Practical Support and Stress ...................................................... 44 Socioeconomic Status ....................................................................................................... 46 Statement of Purpose ................................................................................................................ 50 CHAPTER 2: METHOD ......................................................................................................... 55 Participants ................................................................................................................................ 55 Procedure .................................................................................................................................. 56 Measures ................................................................................................................................... 58 Demographics ....................................................................................................................... 58 Parent Factors........................................................................................................................ 58 Indicators of Developmental History: Parent‟s Developmental History of Abuse........... 58 Indicators of Maladaptive Parent Personality ................................................................... 61 Indicators of Parent Psychoemotional Distress................................................................. 64 Indicators of Nurturing Childrearing Beliefs and Attitudes ............................................. 69 Parent Age ......................................................................................................................... 71 Child Factors ......................................................................................................................... 71 iv Contextual Factors ................................................................................................................ 73 Indicators of a Lack of Emotional Support: Interpersonal Problems ............................... 73 Indicators of Instrumental/Practical Stress ....................................................................... 75 Indicators of Socioeconomic Status (SES) ....................................................................... 75 Empathically Attuned Parenting ........................................................................................... 77 Child Development: Child Psychoemotional Distress .......................................................... 81 Data Analysis ............................................................................................................................ 83 CHAPTER 3: RESULTS ......................................................................................................... 89 Evaluation of the Proposed Outer Measurement Model ....................................................... 89 Reliability .......................................................................................................................... 89 Validity ............................................................................................................................
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