Children's empathy moderates the association between perceived interparental conflict and child health.

Interparental conflict is known to negatively impact child well-being, including behavioral and physiological well-being. Children's empathy - that is, vicariously experiencing others' emotions - may increase children's sensitivity to and the biological repercussions of interparental conflict. Although empathy represents a valued trait and is an important part of socioemotional development, its influence on children's physical health is unknown. This study examined whether empathy moderates the association between perceived interparental conflict and both child systemic inflammation and parent-rated overall child health in a sample of children between the ages of seven to nine. Children and their parents participating in the long-term evaluation of the Family Foundations program, a randomized trial of a perinatal preventative intervention, provided data approximately eight years following enrollment into the program. We collected peripheral blood samples via dried blood spots, anthropometric measurements, and child and parent psychosocial questionnaires. Results indicated significant positive main effects of child empathy on both C-reactive protein (CRP; B = 0.26, SE = 0.11, p =.026) and Interleukin-6 (IL-6; B = 0.20, SE = 0.10, p =.045) levels. Further, child affective empathy moderated the associations between perceived interparental conflict and both CRP (B = 0.39, SE = 0.19, p =.050) and parent-reported child health (B = 0.30, SE = 0.13, p =.021), such that greater empathy strengthened the negative associations between interparental conflict and child health. Overall, findings suggests that there may be a biological cost of being more empathic in high-conflict environments and highlight the need for tools to help more empathic children appropriately manage vicarious emotions.
Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Mark Feinberg created the Family Foundations program and is the owner of a private company, Family Gold, which disseminates the Family Foundations program. His financial interest has been reviewed by the Institutional Review Board and the Conflict of Interest Committee at The Pennsylvania State University. The other authors declare no conflicts of interest. Research presented here was supported via funding from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (R01 HL137809 (Schreier)) and Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (R01s HD058529 and HD084476 (Feinberg); T32HD101390 (Ganguli)).
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