The Moderating Effects of Parenting Styles in the Association Between Behavioral Inhibition and Parent-Reported Guilt and Empathy in Preschool Children

Abstract

This study investigated interactions between children's temperament and parenting styles in their association with measures of guilt and empathy. Participants were 87 predominantly Caucasian, middle-class mothers and their children between the ages of 3 and 5 (M = 4.39, SD = .51). Children nominated by their preschool teachers as being behaviorally inhibited showed higher levels of parent-rated guilt and empathy than uninhibited children, irrespective of the type and quality of parenting they experienced. However, for uninhibited children, greater inconsistent discipline was associated with lower levels of guilt and lower levels of empathy, whereas higher levels of authoritarian parenting were associated with higher levels of guilt. These results support the presence of important interactions between temperament and parenting in explaining two critical dimensions of callous-unemotional traits.

We extend sincere appreciation to Francoise Parr for her assistance in collecting and scoring the data for the project, to the teachers who provided nominations, and to the directors of the preschools who willingly gave access to their classrooms, helped to make data collection run smoothly, and expressed enthusiasm about the implications of the study.

Notes

Note: Temperament nomination was coded as 0 for behaviorally uninhibited and 1 for behaviorally inhibited; correlations in the body of the table are zero-order correlations.

∗p < .05

∗∗p < .01

∗∗∗p < .001.

Note: Temperament (temp) nomination was coded as 0 for behaviorally uninhibited and 1 for behaviorally inhibited; sex was coded as 0 for boys and 1 for girls; all predictors were centered using the sample mean prior to entering them into the regression analyses.

∗p < .05

∗∗p < .01

∗∗∗p < .001.