Empathy as a mediator of the relations between parent and peer attachment and prosocial and physically aggressive behaviors in Mexican American college students

Abstract

Attachment and social support theories are normative developmental approaches that postulate positive social behavioral outcomes for individuals who develop strong relationships to parents and peers; however, research on positive aspects of Latinos in the United States is scarce. One hundred and forty-five Mexican American college students (M age = 23.05 years; 99 females) from state universities in the United States completed measures of parent and peer attachment, empathy, prosocial behaviors, and physical aggression. Structural equation models showed that both parent and peer attachments were associated with prosocial and physically aggressive behaviors. In general, empathy mediated the relations between peer attachment and both types of social behaviors but mostly for men and not women. Discussion focuses on the importance of attachment relationships and empathy in understanding prosocial and physically aggressive behaviors among Mexican American college students.

Keywords

aggression attachment Latinos prosocial behaviors

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Allen

J. P.

Moore

C. M.

Kuperminc

G. P.

Bell

K. L.

(1998). Attachment and adolescent psychosocial functioning. Child Development, 69, 1406–1419.

Armenta

B. E.

Knight

G. P.

Carlo

Jacobson

R. P.

(2011). The relation between ethnic group attachment and prosocial tendencies: The mediating role of cultural values. European Journal of Social Psychology, 41, 107–115.

Armsden

G. C.

Greenberg

M. T.

(1987). The inventory of parent and peer attachment: Individual differences and their relationship to psychological well-being in adolescence. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 16, 427–454.

Barnett

M. A.

(1987). Empathy and related responses in children. In Eisenberg

Strayer

(Eds), Empathy and its development (pp. 146–162). Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.

Bowlby

(1969/1982). Attachment and loss, Vol. 1. Attachment. New York: Basic.

Bowlby

(1980). Attachment and loss, Vol. 3. Loss: Sadness and depression. New York: Basic.

Bretherton

(1990). Communication patterns, internal working models, and the intergenerational transmission of attachment relationships. Infant Mental Health Journal, 11, 237–252.

Carlo

(2006). Care-based and altruistically-based morality. In Killen

Smetana

J. G.

(Eds), Handbook of moral development (pp. 551–579). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Carlo

de Guzman

M. R. T.

(2009). Theories and research on prosocial competencies among U.S. Latinos/as. In Villarruel

F. A.

Carlo

Grau

J. M.

Azmitia

Cabrera

N. J.

Chahin

T. J.

(Eds), Handbook of U.S. Latino psychology: Developmental and community-based perspectives (pp. 191–211). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

10.

Carlo

Knight

G. P.

McGinley

Zamboanga

B. L.

Jarvis

(2010). The multidimensionality of prosocial behaviors and evidence of measurement equivalence in Mexican American and European American early adolescents. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 20, 334–358.

11.

Carlo

McGinley

Hayes

Batenhorst

Wilkinson

(2007). Parenting styles or practices? Parenting, sympathy, and prosocial behaviors among adolescents. The Journal of Genetic Psychology, 168, 147–176.

12.

Carlo

Randall

B. A.

(2002). The development of a measure of prosocial behaviors for late adolescents. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 31, 31–44.

13.

Carlo

Raffaelli

Laible

D. J.

Meyer

K. A.

(1999). Why are girls less physically aggressive than boys? Personality and parenting mediators of physical aggression. Sex Roles, 40, 711–729.

14.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (1997). Youth risk behavior surveillance: National college health risk behavior survey – United States. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 46, (SS-6).

15.

Cooper

M. L.

Shaver

P. R.

Collins

N. L.

(1998). Attachment styles, emotion regulation, and adjustment in adolescence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 1380–1397.

16.

Dalla

R. L.

Villarruel

F. A.

Cramer

S. C.

Gonzalez-Kruger

(2004). Rural community change, strengths and challenges: Long-term impacts of rapid immigration. Great Plains Research Journal, 14, 231–252.

17.

Davis

M. H.

(1983). The effects of dispositional empathy on emotional reactions and helping: A multidimensional approach. Journal of Personality, 51, 167–184.

18.

Delgado-Gaitan

(1994). Socializing young children in Mexican-American families: An intergenerational perspective. In Greenfield

P. M.

Cocking

R. R.

(Eds), Cross-cultural roots of minority child development (pp. 55–86). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

19.

Eisenberg

(1986). Altruistic emotion, cognition and behavior. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

20.

Eisenberg

Fabes

R. A.

(1998). Prosocial development. In Damon

(Series Ed.) & Eisenberg

(Vol. Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol 3, Social, emotional, and personality development (pp. 701–778). New York: Wiley.

21.

Fisher

C. B.

Hoagwood

Boyce

Duster

Frank

D. A.

Grisso

. (2002). Research ethics for mental health science involving ethnic minority children and youths. American Psychologist, 57, 1024–1040.

22.

Fuligni

A. J.

Eccles

J. S.

(1993). Perceived parent-child relationships and early adolescents' orientation toward peers. Developmental Psychology, 29, 622–632.

23.

Furman

Buhrmester

(1992). Age and sex differences in perceptions of networks and personal relationships. Child Development, 63, 103–115.

24.

García

Coll

C.Crnic

K. C.

Lamberty

Wasik

B. H.

Jenkins

García

H. V.

McAdoo

H. P.

(1996). An integrative model for the study of developmental competencies in minority children. Child Development, 67, 1891–1914.

25.

Gilligan

(1982). In a different voice: Psychological theory and women’s development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

26.

Greene

M. L.

Way

(2005). Self-esteem trajectories among ethnic minority adolescents: A growth curve analysis of the patterns and predictors of change. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 15, 151–178.

27.

Hartup

W. W.

(1992). Friendships and their developmental significance. In McGurk

(Ed.), Childhood social development: Contemporary perspectives (pp. 175–205). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

28.

Hazan

Shaver

P. R.

(1994). Attachment as an organizational framework for research on close relationships. Psychological Inquiry, 5, 1–22.

29.

Hoffman

M. L.

(2000). Empathy and moral development: Implications for caring and justice. New York: Cambridge University Press.

30.

Hofstede

(1982). Dimensions of national cultures. In Rath

Asthana

H. S.

Sinha

J. B. P.

(Eds), Diversity and unity in cross-cultural psychology (pp. 173–187). Lisse, The Netherlands: Swets & Zeitlinger.

31.

Howes

(1999). Attachment relationships in the context of multiple caregivers. In Cassidy

Shaver

P. R.

(Eds), Handbook of attachment: Theory, research, and clinical applications (pp. 671–687). New York: Guilford Press.

32.

Bentler

P. M.

(1999). Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis: Conventional criteria versus new alternatives. Structural Equation Modeling, 6, 1–55.

33.

Kenny

M. E.

Barton

C. E.

(2003). Attachment theory and research: Contributions for understanding late adolescent and young adult development. In Demick

Andreoletti

(Eds), Handbook of adult development (pp. 371–389). New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers.

34.

Kenny

M. E.

Perez

(1996). Attachment and psychological well-being among racially and ethnically diverse first-year college students. Journal of College Student Development, 37, 527–535.

35.

Kenny

M. E.

Stryker

(1996). Social network characteristics and college adjustment among racially and ethnically diverse first-year students. Journal of College Student Development, 37, 649–658.

36.

Kestenbaum

Farber

E. A.

Sroufe

L. A.

(1989). Individual differences in empathy among preschoolers: Relation to attachment history. New Directions for Child Development, 44, 51–64.

37.

Kline

R. B.

(1998). Principles and practice of structural equation modeling. New York: Guilford Press.

38.

Knight

G. P.

Bernal

M. E.

Carlo

(1995). Socialization and the development of cooperative, competitive, and individualistic behaviors among Mexican American children. In García

E. E.

McLaughlin

(Eds), Yearbook in early childhood education, Vol. 6: Meeting the challenge of linguistic and cultural diversity in early childhood education (pp. 85–102). New York: Teachers College Press.

39.

Kobak

R. R.

Sceery

(1988). Attachment in late adolescence: Working models, affect regulation, and representation of self and others. Child Development, 59, 135–146.

40.

Laible

D. J.

Carlo

Raffaelli

(2000). The differential relations of parent and peer attachment to adolescent adjustment. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 29, 45–59.

41.

Lugalla

Overturf

(2004). Children and the households they live in: 2000. (Census 2000 Special Reports, CENSR-14.) Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau.

42.

Maccoby

E. E.

Jacklin

C. N.

(1974). The psychology of sex differences. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

43.

MacKinnon

D. P.

Lockwood

C. M.

Hoffman

J. M.

West

S. G.

Sheets

(2002). A comparison of methods to test mediation and other intervening variable effects. Psychological Methods, 7, 83–104.

44.

MacPhee

Fritz

Miller-Heyl

(1996). Ethnic variations in personal social networks and parenting. Child Development, 67, 3278–3295.

45.

Marin

Sabogal

Marin

B. V.

Otero-Sabogal

Perez-Stable

E. J.

(1987). Development of a short acculturation scale for Hispanics. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 9, 183–205.

46.

Marvin

R. S.

Britner

P. A.

(1999). Normative development: The ontogeny of attachment. In Cassidy

Shaver

P. R.

(Eds), Handbook of attachment: Theory, research, and clinical applications (pp. 44–67). New York: Guilford Press.

47.

McDade

(1995). How we parent: Race and ethnic differences. In Jacobson

C. K.

(Ed.), American families: Issues in race and ethnicity (pp. 283–300). New York: Garland Publishing.

48.

McGinley

Carlo

(2007). Two sides of the same coin? The relations between prosocial and physically aggressive behaviors. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 36, 337–349.

49.

McGrath

M. P.

Zook

J. M.

Weber-Roehl

(2003). Socializing prosocial behavior in children: The roles of parents and peers. In Shohov

S. P.

(Ed.), Advances in psychology research, Vol. 20 (pp. 53–59). Hauppauge, NY: Nova Science Publishers, Inc.

50.

Miller

P. A.

Eisenberg

(1988). The relation of empathy to aggressive and externalizing/antisocial behavior. Psychological Bulletin, 103, 324–344.

51.

Muthén

L. K.

Muthén

B. O.

(2004). Mplus computer software. Los Angeles: Muthén & Muthén.

52.

Nada Raja

McGee

Stanton

W. R.

(1992). Perceived attachments to parents and peers and psychological well-being in adolescence. Journal of Youth & Adolescence, 21, 471–485.

53.

Raffaelli

Carlo

Carranza

Gonzalez-Kruger

(2005). Understanding Latino children and adolescents in the mainstream: Placing culture at the center of developmental models. In Larson

Jensen

(Eds), New horizons in developmental research: New directions for child and adolescent development (pp. 23–32). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

54.

Ramirez

R. R.

de la Cruz

G. P.

(2002). The Hispanic population in the United States: March 2002. Current population report (pp. 20–545). Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau.

55.

Rodriguez

Mira

C. B.

Myers

H. F.

Morris

J. K.

Cardoza

(2003). Family or friends: Who plays a greater supportive role for Latino college students? Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 9, 236–250.

56.

Saferstein

J. A.

Neimeyer

G. J.

Hagans

C. L.

(2005). Attachment as a predictor of friendship qualities in college youth. Social Behavior and Personality, 33, 767–776.

57.

Schwartz

S. J.

Zamboanga

B. L.

Jarvis

L. H.

(2007). Ethnic identity and acculturation in Hispanic early adolescents: Mediated relationships to academic grades, prosocial behaviors, and externalizing symptoms. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 13, 364–373.

58.

Shaver

Mikulincer

(2010). New directions in attachment theory and research. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 27, 163–172.

59.

Shrout

P. E.

Bolger

(2002). Mediation in experimental and nonexperimental studies: New procedures and recommendations. Psychological Methods, 7, 422–445.

60.

Strayer

(1987). Affective and cognitive perspectives on empathy. In Eisenberg

Strayer

(Eds), Empathy and its development (pp. 218–244). New York: Cambridge University Press.

61.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (2001). Mental health: Culture, race, and ethnicity – A supplement to Mental health: A report of the Surgeon General. Rockville, MD: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Center for Mental Health Services.

62.

Vaux

(1988). Social support: Theory, research, and intervention. New York: Praeger.

63.

Washington

E. D.

McLoyd

V. C.

(1982). The external validity of research involving American minorities. Human Development, 25, 324–339.

64.

Waters

Hay

D. F.

Richters

(1986). Infant-parent attachment and the origins of prosocial and antisocial behavior. In Olweus

Block

Radke-Yarrow

(Eds), Development of antisocial and prosocial behavior: Research, theories, and issues (pp. 97–125). New York: Academic Press.

65.

Weinberger

D. A.

(1991). Social-emotional adjustment in older children and adults: Psychometric properties of the Weinberger Adjustment Inventory. Unpublished manuscript, Case Western Reserve University.

66.

Weston

Gore

P. A.

(2006). A brief guide to structural equation modeling. The Counseling Psychologist, 34, 719–751.

67.

Zayas

L. H.

Solari

(1994). Early childhood socialization in Hispanic families: Context, culture, and practice implications. Professional Psychology: Research & Practice, 25, 200–206.