Empathy is considered an important aspect of social interactions, allowing social harmony and understanding, but little is known about the factors that influence its development. Results indicate that children's reported level of spirituality is unrelated to their reported level of empathy. In addition, Catholics and other religions did not differ significantly from Protestants in reported levels of spirituality.
Gender was found to be significantly related to empathy, with women achieving higher empathy scores than men. Although this study did not find any factors associated with the development of empathy, it is still important to continue. If we can learn which factors contribute positively to the development of empathy, we can support those factors to help all children contribute more empathetically to our society.
Introduction and Literature Review
The current study was completed to attempt to fill this research gap by examining how gender, religious affiliation, and spirituality affect children's levels of empathy. Between the ages of three and six, a child's cognitive abilities increase, which in turn results in the development and expression of a greater range of emotions. In addition to typical theories about the development of empathy, theories related to intelligence also try to explain how an individual becomes capable of empathy.
Engaging in social relationships also helps develop empathy as children are often empathically supported by their peers, especially in times of stress. Hoffman examined the ability to evoke empathy in the participant, as well as the corresponding expression of that empathy to another. In general, research has consistently found that women express higher levels of empathy than men, which is hypothesized to be related to cultural expectations regarding acceptable male and female responses.
Thus, another variable that may be related to children's levels of empathy is their level of spirituality. Often associated with the development of empathy is the demonstration of helping or prosocial behaviors. Due to scarcity and conflicting results, research has not yet been able to clearly identify whether religion and spirituality are related to children's levels of empathy.
This current study attempted to fill this research gap by examining how gender, religiosity, and children's spirituality related to their level of empathy.
Method
88% of the questionnaires were completed by the mother, 8% by the father and 4% by the grandmother. Because many of the children's answers differed from those of the parents, with several children answering “I don't know,” the parent information was used because it was more accurate. The search for a measure of a person's level of empathy began with Mehrabian and Epstein's (1972) measure of emotional empathy.
With some modifications of this measure, Bryant (1982) created the Empathy Index for Children and Adolescents. Because there are relatively few measures of empathy levels in children and adolescents, and this measure has been found to have good validity and reliability across multiple age groups of children, the Child and Adolescent Empathy Index was used for this study. The Child and Adolescent Empathy Index (Bryant, 1982; see Appendix C) is a measure of empathy based on responses to a set of questions.
Specifically, to be sure that the yes/no version of the Child and Adolescent Empathy Index is a reliable measure of nine- to 12-year-old children, multiple Chronbach's alphas were conducted. The scale is intended to measure a person's perception of the transcendent (God, the divine) in everyday life and his or her perception of his or her interaction with the transcendent or involvement in life.” Each response is then scored, with the sum of the scores indicating each individual's level of spirituality, with higher scores reflecting a higher level of spirituality.
The internal consistency reliability estimates of the DSES using Chronbach's alpha coefficients were high at .94 and .95, and interrater reliability (when the questions were presented in an interview format) ranged from .64 to . 78, which is considered sufficient. The Catholic variable includes all those individuals who answered that Catholic was the family's religious faith, while Other Religion includes responses from other religions, such as Jews, Orthodox, Mormons, and Jehovah's Witnesses. Finally, the variables of child-reported level of empathy and child-reported level of spirituality are both considered to be manifest as they were specifically measured, with a total score being used.
In addition to being interrelated, time advantage, logic, and prior research suggest that these initial variables also influence empathy variables and. Overall, the use of SEM made it possible to examine the effect that the main variable, the child's reported level of spirituality, has on the second main variable, the child's reported level of empathy. In addition, SEM allowed for an examination of how these main variables interacted while controlling for the background variables of family gender, income, and religious affiliation.
Results
Specifically, for every standard deviation increase in gender, there is a 0.29 standard deviation decrease in empathy. Since women were scored as 0 and men as 1, women had a higher empathy score than men. Additional results unrelated to the main hypotheses indicated that specific religion was also unrelated to empathy.
More specifically, Catholics did not differ significantly from Protestants in their reported level of empathy (β = −.12). In addition, other religious denominations did not differ significantly from Protestants in their reported level of empathy (β = −.05).
Discussion
It is suspected that one's reported level of spirituality was not related to one's reported levels of empathy due to the possibility that adolescents are unsure how to express their feelings about their relationship with a higher power, and so a questionnaire cannot measure their level determine accurately. of spirituality. It may also be possible that spirituality is unrelated to children's reported levels of empathy. As hypothesized, identification with a specific religious denomination was not significantly related to reported level of spirituality.
More specifically, Catholics did not significantly differ from Protestants in reported levels of spirituality, and other religions did not significantly differ from Protestants in reported levels of spirituality. Based on the generally accepted definitions of spirituality and religiosity in previous research, it was not expected that one's affiliation with a specific religious denomination would be related to their level of spirituality. Additionally, the lack of a relationship between one's religious affiliation and one's reported level of spirituality may be due to parental expectations and/or.
Additionally, adolescent family income was also unrelated to reported levels of spirituality. Finally, being male or female was also not significantly related to reported level of spirituality. One of the limitations of the study was the measure used to determine the spirituality level of the youth.
Specifically, the Adult Spirituality Scale was used as a measure to determine children's level of spirituality, as no measure adapted to children was available. Although this study has provided us with a great deal of information about what is and is not associated with the development of empathy, there is still much that is unknown about what factors help to develop a basic level of empathy. Additionally, it would be useful to further examine whether other specific aspects of an individual's life, such as intelligence, education, or birth order, are associated with higher levels of reported empathy.
In addition to the self-report questionnaire measures that were used, alternative methods of data collection would be recommended for additional research on identifying levels of empathy or spirituality. Specifically, due to the different levels of cognitive abilities and academic performance of students in the school environment, it would be. This study aimed to help clarify what factors contribute to the development of an individual's baseline level of empathy.
Additionally, specific religious denominations were found to be unrelated to one's reported levels of spirituality. Although limitations were found for this particular study, research in this area is still needed to determine what factors contribute to the basic level of empathy.
