2. Parenting styles in socialization process

other [25]. Emotional contagion also implies the inclination to catch emotions of the other people [26]. Theorists have argued that empathy can lead to sympathy that means concern or sorrow for another based on perceiving and understanding their emotional state by orienting and focusing on the others. Sympathy is defined as emotional response that is oriented to another based on the understanding of negative emotional state of another. It involves feelings of concern and the desire to alleviate the negative emotions experienced by the others in distress [27]. Sympathy results in a motivation to relieve the negative emotions experienced by the other person in distress [28, 29]. A person can behave in prosocial or altruistic ways and help the other person by a desire to alleviate the negative arousal by feeling the other experiencing negative emotions in distress [21]. Sympathy and internalized norms/principles are seen as the two primary motives for altruistic actions [1]. Empathic concern orients others and involves feeling for the others. Compassion states a dimension of morality that emphasizes interpersonal responsibility, ethical behavior and concern for the well-being of others in distress. Individuals can develop sympathy and understand distressful situations of others by empathizing others. Sympathy that means compassion feelings for others motivates prosocial behavior [30, 31]. Sympathy, empathic concern and compassion do not necessarily require shared feelings, while empathy entails feelings that are in an isomorphic way to feelings of the other person. Empathizing with a person in distress can lead to a feeling of distress in the self, whereas sympathizing associated with empathy or feeling compassion for a sad person may result in compassionate love for the person. When an individual realizes that a person is jealous of him, he cannot begin feeling jealous himself though he may exhibit sympathy or compassion for the jealous person [15]. Empathic concern, sympathy and compassion have sometimes been addressed as synonymous [14]. Empathy has usually been associated with prosocial and altruistic and other-oriented motivations in order to increase well-being or welfare of the other person. Although empathy does not necessarily arouse such motivations, examples of empathy in real-life may leave a prosocial tendency. A tormentor can use empathy in order to enhance suffering of his victim to operate warfare in sports or business environments. An individual may think the negative effects of an action for the rival person and behaves selfishly instead of prosocial, other-oriented behavior as he/she experiences too much empathy. When a person generally empathizes with other, he/she starts with affect sharing by understanding with the feelings of the other person and then motivates prosocial, otheroriented action and engages in helping behavior [17]. Emotions influence prosocial behaviors in children and youths. Emotions, particularly empathy-related emotions, play an important role in developing prosocial values, motives and behaviors in socialization processes. Persons perceive self and other when feeling empathic concern. Children can develop personal distress or sympathetic distress after they perceive the self-other distinction by feeling empathy for the others. Empathy motivates altruistic behavior and similar prosocial behavior [21]. Empathy facilitates caring actions such as sympathizing, helping, sharing, providing physical comfort that reflect concern for the well-being of others [1]. It characterizes an ideal mechanism that underlies caring behavior that respond to pain, need or distress of another [21, 32]. Individuals display sympathy and altruistic responding when they take the view point of another. Perspective-taking encourages sympathy and the performance of prosocial behavior [33]. Individuals may identify, understand and sympathize with distress or needs of others via perspective-taking skills [34]. These skills can provide accurately understanding emotional

76 Socialization - A Multidimensional Perspective

Theorists have argued that parenting styles in authoritative, permissive and authoritarian practices. The permissive parents accept, approve and do not punish impulses, desires and actions of the children. They exhibit extreme responsiveness to the requests of the children and rarely try to control them. The authoritarian parents tend strictly to control and punish the attitudes and behavior of the children. The authoritative parents also try to approach activities of the children with a rational attitude. The authoritative parents display responsiveness to the needs of the children and exert control on them. Both authoritative and authoritarian parents are demanding towards their children. The authoritative parents reason with the children and offer explanations, while the authoritarian parents expect their children to accept values and judgments of the parents without questioning [39]. Democratic or authoritative parents who are warm toward avoid rigidly rejecting and harshly punishing their children. They behave both flexibly and responsive to desires of children and expect maturity from their children and control them [1]. Warm and supportive parents interact warmly and affectionately with them by often smiling at, praising and encouraging their children. They avoid criticizing, punishing and disapproving children and provide more praise than criticism. Parents who are rated high on warmth tend to be responsive to the needs and desires of their children and deeply commit to welfare of their children. They spend more time and enjoy shared activities with their children. Warm parents exhibit more active concern, involvement and affection, caretaking and playful joking behavior toward their children. Accepting parents nurture, support and love their children [40, 41]. Parents exhibit responsiveness and attune to the needs of their children and serve as a secure base when children experience discomfort or stress [42]. Barnett [43] has suggested that parental warmth is a criterion for socialization regarding empathy. Parents can empathize with their children when they satisfy own emotional needs of the children and encourage the children to experience and express broadly their emotions and provides opportunities for the children to observe and interact with others and impede excessive self-concern. Parental warmth provides an optimal environment for socialization because children may attend to and care about more pleasing their parents when the relationships generally are supportive [44]. Parental warmth/responsiveness can develop a secure attachment between the caregiver and the child. Support leads to children feeling secure and minimizing self-concern [45, 46]. Attachment relationships begin to develop when parents are consistently sensitive to their children's crises or their needs and they respond consistently, sensitively and appropriately to distressed children [47]. Securely attached children exhibit behaviors consistent with a loving, trusting relationship with their parents. They can be upset by the absence of the parent and be calm by the presence of the parent and feel comfortable enough to explore their surroundings. Children with secure attachments tend to differentially attend and orient positively their parents and want to please them. They are familiar with and reproduce their actions and accord with values, expectations of their parents. Children with secure attachments tend to be responsive to parental controls and wish to avoid undesired and deviated behaviors [45]. Children may pay more attention to them, look forward to interacting with them, feel secure in the relationship and thus be more eager learners during the socialization process when they seem happy in their relationships with their parents. These tendencies may enhance the effectiveness of parental attempts that encourage and foster empathy, sympathy and prosocial behaviors [48, 49]. The quality of early attachments fosters sympathetic responding within the parent-child relationships because it plays an important role in developing connections to others and positive valuing other people's characteristics [50]. Children who internalize secure relationship qualities engage empathically with others and prepare to act on behalf of others [51]. Children with secure attachment histories can empathize with the plight of that person when they see someone experiencing distress. These children with secure attachments who have warm parents might be more prosocial. Parents may bring up the children who engage with and respond to the needs of others by displaying sensitivity, giving reliable responses toward their children and relieving them from distress [38]. Dimensions of parenting styles not only include parental warmth/responsiveness but also parental demandingness or control in socialization process. Parental demandingness or control indicates the degree of strictness and behavioral standards expressed by parents for their children [52]. Parents who engage in authoritative parenting exercise control by combining with warmth, nurturance, democracy and open parent-child communication [3]. Parents play a major role in displaying leadership and knowledge, determining rules and providing care by

exerting their own authority. They accept and respect their children. The rational-authoritative model balances control with warmth and judicious demands with responsiveness; it rejects the false polarity between indulgence and tyranny in child-rearing ideology. Authoritative parents tend to be both more demanding and more responsive, in contrast with authoritarian parents [53]. Parents set high behavioral standards and monitor their children more closely when they place strict demands on their children. Demanding parents might rear children who strongly internalize moral values [54]. These parents set firm controls on their behavior for their children [55] and apply or justify firm control by rationally explaining consistently enforced rules [53]. Parents who exhibit authoritative or democratic attitudes and behaviors strongly demand maturity and listen to viewpoints of their children and even adjust their behavior accordingly [55]. These parents remain receptive to the views of the children and guide firmly children for their actions. Authoritative parents communicate friendly and use reasoning and discuss rationally with their children as tutorial and disciplinary in socialization practices. They emphasize the rights and responsibilities in children [53]. Democratic parents carry out socialization practices such as using less coercive methods and explaining rules, offering reasons for desired behavior, pointing out the hurtful actions of children hold for others, asking children to perform up to their ability, giving children the opportunity to make their

Socialization Processes toward Children and Adolescents for Developing Empathy, Sympathy and Prosocial…

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.74132

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own decisions and expecting mature behavior and a high level of responsibility [2].

examined

3. Method, data collection technique and research process in the studies

Researchers obtain data via methods such as observing parents and children as they watch empathy inducing clips, videotaping empathy shows during interactions between parent and child, parents and children responding to questions that relate to empathy and observing parents and children engaging with stories meant to produce empathic responses. They collect data as nonverbal self-report measure as well as verbal reports by observing and interviewing children and their parents, using measures such as the Authoritative Parenting index [56], the Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (the HOME inventory) [57], the Prosocial Tendencies Measure-Revised (PTM-R; [58]) and Prosocial Reasoning Objective Measure (PROM; [59]). Participants are asked to rate the degree to which statements that describe parent-child interactions in their families in order to obtain data concerning warmth/responsiveness or strictness/demandingness as components in authoritative parenting style. Parental warmth and demandingness are described as the Authoritative Parenting index [56] and the Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (the HOME inventory) [57]. Parental warmth is measured via items such as "parent makes the child feel better when something is wrong," "parent shows interest in child," "parent physically expresses affection (e.g., hugging, kissing, holding)" and "parent shows patience with the child" while demandingness is assessed by statements such as "parent clearly states rules to be followed," "parent provides instructions to the child for appropriate behavior" and "parent has high expectations of child's behavior." The extent of responsiveness is reflected through statements such as "my parents help me with my school work if there is something I don't understand." The extent of strictness exerting their own authority. They accept and respect their children. The rational-authoritative model balances control with warmth and judicious demands with responsiveness; it rejects the false polarity between indulgence and tyranny in child-rearing ideology. Authoritative parents tend to be both more demanding and more responsive, in contrast with authoritarian parents [53]. Parents set high behavioral standards and monitor their children more closely when they place strict demands on their children. Demanding parents might rear children who strongly internalize moral values [54]. These parents set firm controls on their behavior for their children [55] and apply or justify firm control by rationally explaining consistently enforced rules [53]. Parents who exhibit authoritative or democratic attitudes and behaviors strongly demand maturity and listen to viewpoints of their children and even adjust their behavior accordingly [55]. These parents remain receptive to the views of the children and guide firmly children for their actions. Authoritative parents communicate friendly and use reasoning and discuss rationally with their children as tutorial and disciplinary in socialization practices. They emphasize the rights and responsibilities in children [53]. Democratic parents carry out socialization practices such as using less coercive methods and explaining rules, offering reasons for desired behavior, pointing out the hurtful actions of children hold for others, asking children to perform up to their ability, giving children the opportunity to make their own decisions and expecting mature behavior and a high level of responsibility [2].

by often smiling at, praising and encouraging their children. They avoid criticizing, punishing and disapproving children and provide more praise than criticism. Parents who are rated high on warmth tend to be responsive to the needs and desires of their children and deeply commit to welfare of their children. They spend more time and enjoy shared activities with their children. Warm parents exhibit more active concern, involvement and affection, caretaking and playful joking behavior toward their children. Accepting parents nurture, support and love their children [40, 41]. Parents exhibit responsiveness and attune to the needs of their children and serve as a secure base when children experience discomfort or stress [42]. Barnett [43] has suggested that parental warmth is a criterion for socialization regarding empathy. Parents can empathize with their children when they satisfy own emotional needs of the children and encourage the children to experience and express broadly their emotions and provides opportunities for the children to observe and interact with others and impede excessive self-concern. Parental warmth provides an optimal environment for socialization because children may attend to and care about more pleasing their parents when the relationships generally are supportive [44]. Parental warmth/responsiveness can develop a secure attachment between the caregiver and the child. Support leads to children feeling secure and minimizing self-concern [45, 46]. Attachment relationships begin to develop when parents are consistently sensitive to their children's crises or their needs and they respond consistently, sensitively and appropriately to distressed children [47]. Securely attached children exhibit behaviors consistent with a loving, trusting relationship with their parents. They can be upset by the absence of the parent and be calm by the presence of the parent and feel comfortable enough to explore their surroundings. Children with secure attachments tend to differentially attend and orient positively their parents and want to please them. They are familiar with and reproduce their actions and accord with values, expectations of their parents. Children with secure attachments tend to be responsive to parental controls and wish to avoid undesired and deviated behaviors [45]. Children may pay more attention to them, look forward to interacting with them, feel secure in the relationship and thus be more eager learners during the socialization process when they seem happy in their relationships with their parents. These tendencies may enhance the effectiveness of parental attempts that encourage and foster empathy, sympathy and prosocial behaviors [48, 49]. The quality of early attachments fosters sympathetic responding within the parent-child relationships because it plays an important role in developing connections to others and positive valuing other people's characteristics [50]. Children who internalize secure relationship qualities engage empathically with others and prepare to act on behalf of others [51]. Children with secure attachment histories can empathize with the plight of that person when they see someone experiencing distress. These children with secure attachments who have warm parents might be more prosocial. Parents may bring up the children who engage with and respond to the needs of others by displaying sensitivity, giving reliable responses toward their children and relieving them from distress [38]. Dimensions of parenting styles not only include parental warmth/responsiveness but also parental demandingness or control in socialization process. Parental demandingness or control indicates the degree of strictness and behavioral standards expressed by parents for their children [52]. Parents who engage in authoritative parenting exercise control by combining with warmth, nurturance, democracy and open parent-child communication [3]. Parents play a major role in displaying leadership and knowledge, determining rules and providing care by

78 Socialization - A Multidimensional Perspective
