Skip to main content

LUP Student Papers

LUND UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

The Role of Caregiver-Child Conversations on the Development of Empathy During Childhood: A Systematic Review

Lopes Pereira, Roberta LU (2024) PSYP01 20231
Department of Psychology
Abstract (Swedish)
Empathy is a multifaceted competency that underlies socioemotional functioning, improves prosocial behavior, and prevents mental health risks, which makes its development central during childhood with long-lasting impacts on individuals’ lives. In this systematic review we investigate which aspects of caregiver-child conversations that are critical in fostering children’s empathy. The study and search strategy followed the Cochrane and PRISMA guidelines and was preregistered on PROSPERO (ID CRD42023423830). The searches were performed between April and October of 2023 on PsycINFO, SocINDEX, and PubMed databases, in addition to reference lists and citations (SCOPUS). A total of 1052 studies were screened and 79 were read thoroughly,... (More)
Empathy is a multifaceted competency that underlies socioemotional functioning, improves prosocial behavior, and prevents mental health risks, which makes its development central during childhood with long-lasting impacts on individuals’ lives. In this systematic review we investigate which aspects of caregiver-child conversations that are critical in fostering children’s empathy. The study and search strategy followed the Cochrane and PRISMA guidelines and was preregistered on PROSPERO (ID CRD42023423830). The searches were performed between April and October of 2023 on PsycINFO, SocINDEX, and PubMed databases, in addition to reference lists and citations (SCOPUS). A total of 1052 studies were screened and 79 were read thoroughly, resulting in 11 articles included in this review. The articles concern dyads of a caregiver and a typically developing child (under 12 y/o) and assessed direct links between caregiver discourse styles (regarding content and elaborateness) and child empathy. Results showed that both emotion discourses and mental state labels promote children’s empathy. Specifically, relations were found between children’s empathy and parental inquisitive forms of emotion labels, emotion questions, and emotion elaborations. On the other hand, the findings regarding parental use of emotion labels and empathy were inconsistent. While emotion explanations were unrelated to empathy in all studies investigating this kind of talk (n=6), emotion discourse that encourage children to reflect on their own and others’ emotions and process their own ideas, rather than discourses that might be too didactic or overly arousing (i.e., explanations, discipline), appeared relevant in fostering children’s empathy. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Lopes Pereira, Roberta LU
supervisor
organization
course
PSYP01 20231
year
type
H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
subject
keywords
caregiver-child conversation, emotion talk, empathy, children, systematic review
language
English
id
9146430
date added to LUP
2024-01-24 16:16:28
date last changed
2024-01-24 16:16:28
@misc{9146430,
  abstract     = {{Empathy is a multifaceted competency that underlies socioemotional functioning, improves prosocial behavior, and prevents mental health risks, which makes its development central during childhood with long-lasting impacts on individuals’ lives. In this systematic review we investigate which aspects of caregiver-child conversations that are critical in fostering children’s empathy. The study and search strategy followed the Cochrane and PRISMA guidelines and was preregistered on PROSPERO (ID CRD42023423830). The searches were performed between April and October of 2023 on PsycINFO, SocINDEX, and PubMed databases, in addition to reference lists and citations (SCOPUS). A total of 1052 studies were screened and 79 were read thoroughly, resulting in 11 articles included in this review. The articles concern dyads of a caregiver and a typically developing child (under 12 y/o) and assessed direct links between caregiver discourse styles (regarding content and elaborateness) and child empathy. Results showed that both emotion discourses and mental state labels promote children’s empathy. Specifically, relations were found between children’s empathy and parental inquisitive forms of emotion labels, emotion questions, and emotion elaborations. On the other hand, the findings regarding parental use of emotion labels and empathy were inconsistent. While emotion explanations were unrelated to empathy in all studies investigating this kind of talk (n=6), emotion discourse that encourage children to reflect on their own and others’ emotions and process their own ideas, rather than discourses that might be too didactic or overly arousing (i.e., explanations, discipline), appeared relevant in fostering children’s empathy.}},
  author       = {{Lopes Pereira, Roberta}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{The Role of Caregiver-Child Conversations on the Development of Empathy During Childhood: A Systematic Review}},
  year         = {{2024}},
}