Parallel empathy and group attitudes in late childhood: The role of perceived peer group attitudes

ABSTRACT

Although several studies have examined outgroup empathy, the link between trait empathy and outgroup attitudes has been underinvestigated. In the present study this link was investigated among two samples of ethnic Dutch preadolescents (N = 335, M_age = 10.83 years, SD = 0.94; 53% girls; N = 326; M_age = 10.53 years, SD = 1.03; 48% girls). It examined children’s parallel empathy in relation to their ethnic attitudes, and the moderating role of perceived peer norms. Results (partly) support the hypotheses that empathy is associated with more outgroup positivity and less ingroup bias (ingroup minus outgroup attitude). The negative link between empathy and outgroup bias was stronger when peers were perceived to be more biased against the outgroup.

KEYWORDS:

• parallel empathy
• group attitudes
• late childhood

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

The data described in this article are openly available in the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/fm8y5/?view_only=6c0bc71a1ecb41ee86e0becdc990a451.

Open scholarship

This article has earned the Center for Open Science badges for Open Data and Open Materials through Open Practices Disclosure. The data and materials are openly accessible athttps://osf.io/fm8y5/?view_only=6c0bc71a1ecb41ee86e0becdc990a451.

Notes

1. Dataset 2 included three questions on the degree of Dutch identification where children could also indicate that they considered themselves as non-Dutch. Children who did so for one or more of the questions were excluded, but also children who did not answer all of them. The identification measure was not part of the analyses as it was unrelated to children’s empathy.

2. The datasets also contained smiley-face measures for other groups (Polish people, Dataset 1), and (German people, in Dataset 2). These questions were not included as those groups are not typical minority groups in Dutch society.

3. The trait evaluation measures were part of a small survey experiment which tried to influence children’s outgroup attitudes via an attachment priming procedure. However, the experimental manipulation only influenced children’s ingroup attitude but not their outgroup attitude or ingroup bias. Moreover, it was unrelated to empathy and it did not interact with it.

4. Because the focus was on individual children, no predictors at the classroom level were included.

5. For this reason, the effects of the norm perceptions on the smiley-face attitude measures were not analyzed.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Swedish Research Council [2016-04165]; Dutch Research Council [2016-04165]; Riksbankens Jubileumsfond [P16-0446:1].

Notes on contributors

Ghislaine van Bommel

Ghislaine van Bommel completed the research master Migration, Ethnic Relations and Multiculturalism. She currently works as a junior lecturer at Utrecht University and Tilburg University, the Netherlands.

Jochem Thijs

Jochem Thijs is an Associate Professor at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. His major research interests include ethnic relations in educational contexts, adjustment of ethnic minority children and adolescents, cultural diversity, and teacher dealings with diversity.

Marta Miklikowska

Marta Miklikowska is a Researcher at Umeå University, Sweden, and a Visiting Scholar at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. Her major research interests include anti-immigrant prejudice, empathy, intergroup relations, and the role of social contexts and personal characteristics in adolescent development.