(PS7-33) Changes in Parents' Encouraging of Children’s Empathy Towards Others’ Happiness in a New Parent-mediated Program for Children’s Positive Empathy Development

Children’s prosociality and empathy have been identified as important correlates of their well-being and adjustment (Eisenberg et al., 2006), with parents play an important role in teaching their children prosocial and empathy skills (CITATION). While much research has focused on children’s empathy and prosociality towards others’ distress, little research has focused on children’s positive empathy (PE; e.g., sharing in others’ positive emotions; Morelli et al., 2015) and positive prosociality (e.g., actions that promote others’ happiness) development. The present study focuses on changes in parents’ encouraging behavior (e.g., guiding and coaching) of children’s PE and positive prosociality over the course of a parent-mediated program (Socializing Happiness and Promoting Empathetic Joy in Our Youth; SHAPE JOY) aimed at increasing children’s PE skills through parent socialization of positive empathy.

Hypotheses include (1) parent perception of encouraging skill ability and frequency of skill use will increase over the course of SHAPE JOY, and (2) parent reported likelihood of using the encouraging skill for their child’s PE will increase after completing SHAPE JOY.

Parents (N = 74; Mage = 37.68, SD = 5.17, 94% mothers; 56.76% White, 14.86% Hispanic/Latino/Spanish origin, 12.16% Black/African American, 9.46% Asian/Asian American, 6.76% Multiracial) of 4- to 7-year-old children (Mage = 5.42, SD = .87; 53% boys) participated in SHAPE-JOY. Over the course of the six-week program, parents followed a parent guide including parenting tips to support their child’s PE skill development. One parenting tip included encouraging (e.g., directing, guiding, and coaching their child to be curious about PE). Parents rated both their perceived ability to use the encouraging skill and how often they used the skill prior to the start of the program and after they learned the skill. Further, parents rated how likely they were to engage in encouraging PE behaviors with their child before and after the program. Paired t-tests analyses were conducted to investigate changes in encouraging skill ability and frequency of encouraging skill usage from the start of the intervention to the week after the skill was introduced. A third paired t-test was performed to identify significant changes in encouraging their child’s PE from pre- to post-intervention.

There was a significant increase in perceived ability to use the encouraging skill from before the program (M = 72.66, SD = 21.20) to the week following encourage skill introduction (M = 85.64, SD = 13.81), t(63) = 4.45, p < .001. A significant increase was also observed in reported frequency of encouraging skill use from program start (M = 66.48, SD = 22.54) to the week following introduction of encouraging (M = 78.20, SD = 18.30), t(63) = 3.95, p < .001. Overall, parents reported they were more likely to encourage their child’s PE after completing the program (M = 27.33, SD = 4.27) compared to baseline (M = 22.19, SD = 5.58), t(64) = 8.15, p< .001.

 
Overall, the SHAPE JOY Program is useful in helping parents learn encouraging as a parenting skill and potentially increase their confidence and frequence of encouraging their children’s empathy towards others’ happiness.