Social competence is important for engaging in meaningful interactions with other people. An important aspect of social competence is prosocial behaviour. Some prosocial behaviours can be costly...Show moreSocial competence is important for engaging in meaningful interactions with other people. An important aspect of social competence is prosocial behaviour. Some prosocial behaviours can be costly and by showing sensitivity in their parent-child interaction, children learn and adopt behaviour from their parents. Therefore, we investigated the relation between parental sensitivity and costly prosocial behaviour because parents might influence their children's prosocial behaviour. Moreover, differential susceptibility markers such as the temperamental trait perceptual sensitivity contribute to responding to environmental cues. Therefore, we investigated whether perceptual sensitivity had a moderation effect on the relation between parental sensitivity and costly prosocial behaviour in terms of donation in middle childhood. This study focused on this developmental period because it is an important, transitional stage of children’s development. This study is cross-sectional and our sample consisted of participants (N=216) aged 7-9 that were part of a larger experimental cohort-sequential longitudinal twin study (L-CID). Parental sensitivity was measured with an observational task in which parent-child interaction was observed during a structured situation. A donation task was performed to assess the amount of money that children donate after watching a charity video. Self-report measures were used to access the temperament trait in terms of perceptual sensitivity. Firstly, we hypothesized that there was a positive relation between parental sensitivity and costly prosocial behaviour. After performing a regression analysis, we found no relation within our sample. Secondly, we also hypothesized that perceptual sensitivity moderated the relation between parental sensitivity and costly prosocial behaviour. However, after performing moderation analysis, there was found no interaction effects between our constructs. Our findings indicate that there is not a direct association in how the level of sensitivity in parents influences their children donating behaviour but that other factors such as individual characteristics or environmental factors might be further researched in order to know predictors of costly prosocial behaviour in middle childhood.Show less
Empathy is important for social, cognitive and emotional development in children. Therefore, it is of great value to know what might enhance this development. The current study was designed to...Show moreEmpathy is important for social, cognitive and emotional development in children. Therefore, it is of great value to know what might enhance this development. The current study was designed to examine the development of empathy in children. In addition, the influence of parental sensitivity on empathy (over time) was examined. Parental sensitivity is the ability of the caregiver to understand and respond in an adequate manner to the needs of the child. In this longitudinal study, children were tested with their primary parent for three years, starting when the children were 8 / 9 years old (T1: N = 155, T2: N = 129). Results show a stable level of empathy at the transition from 8 - 9 year olds to 9 - 10 year olds. A decrease was shown at the age of 10 - 11. No significant correlation or interaction over time was found between sensitive parenting and empathy. This indicates that an intervention aimed at enhancing parental sensitivity might not be necessary for the development of higher levels of empathy. Future research should view the three different layers of empathy separately, to see if parental sensitivity has an influence on the different layers of empathy.Show less
