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. 2023 Jan 13:1–12. Online ahead of print. doi: 10.1007/s12144-022-04141-4

How empathy, perceived parental care, and overprotection indexes are affected by participants’ sex: investigating cultural differences

Luisa Braga Pereira 1,✉, Angela Donato Oliva 1
PMCID: PMC9838331  PMID: 36684456

Abstract

Culture seems to affect how empathy’s development is influenced by parental behaviors. Considering that empathy is a social ability whose development is affected by many environmental and biological factors, differences can be expected in the way fathers and mothers care for and protect their sons and daughters, as social roles are influenced by culture. The objective of this research was to assess to what extent empathy, perceived parental care, and overprotection are affected by the offspring’s sex. 477 adults participated in the study and three instruments were used: the Brazilian versions of the Parental Bonding Instrument, the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, and the Empathy Quotient. Pearson correlation, multiple linear regression, and moderation analyses were conducted. Maternal and paternal care were related to empathy variables for women in the Brazilian context, whereas the perceived parenting behaviors of care and overprotection did not show significant associations with empathy for male participants. Preliminary analysis also suggests that the offspring’s sex influences paternal care expressed through variables such as perspective taking and combined cognitive empathy. This study’s outcomes suggest that the way Brazilian parents behave is dependent on their offspring’s sex. The main results were discussed in comparison to literature that used distinct cultural samples, especially to the outcomes found in British reports, to identify Brazilian parents’ behaviors specificities and their association with the autonomous–relational parenting orientation.

Keywords: Empathy, Sex, Parental care, Parental overprotection, Culture

Introduction

Empathy has been the target of different research in psychology lately, thanks to its vital role in interpersonal relationships, since it promotes the sharing of needs, desires, and experiences (Riess, 2017). This multidimensional construct is described by Davis (1983) as being composed of two dimensions: the affective, which is characterized by the genuine worry and interest in other people’s emotional states; and the cognitive, which refers to the spontaneous adoption of others’ perspective and the inference of their thoughts and feelings. While some authors also include a behavioral dimension that comprises the verbal and non-verbal expressions necessary to understanding another individual’s thoughts and emotions in a sensitive way (Clark et al., 2018; Falcone et al., 2008), empathy’s two-dimensional representation is well accepted in the literature (Baron-Cohen & Wheelwright, 2004; Riess, 2017; Zhao et al., 2019).

Empathy and parental behaviors

It is suggested that empathy’s development is influenced by various biological and environmental factors; among those, attachment has been extensively emphasized as a predictor of empathy (Stern & Cassidy, 2018). Attachment can be defined as the dynamic interaction between angst and vulnerability signals expressed by children and the caregivers’ attempts to attenuate those signs (Bowlby, 1969). Whereas the formation of a secure base among parents and children concerns the creation of positive mental models regarding others and is also related to the development of abilities that are involved in the interaction with other people, attachment seems to be intimately associated with empathy (Stern & Cassidy, 2018).

The evaluation of attachment patterns that were established between youngsters and their caregivers may be conducted by considering the perceived parental behaviors described by Parker et al. (1979). According to the authors, it is possible to assess adult individuals’ memories regarding their primary attachment models by focusing on two dimensions: care, which consists of parental proximity, affection, emotional warmth, and empathy; and overprotection, as it regards parental intrusion and control as opposite elements to autonomy encouragement. Few studies have focused on empathy and perceived parental behaviors interactions. Still, parental care has been described as a factor related to or as a predictor of empathy (Guo & Feng, 2017; Lin et al., 2017; Wang et al., 2021). Nonetheless, the association between parental overprotection and empathy is more controversial: some research has found positive correlations between the two variables, although those results had not been previously hypothesized by the researchers (Lin et al., 2017; Lyons et al., 2017). It is possible that the controversial results involving empathy are due to cultural aspects (Zhao et al., 2019). Therefore, it is necessary to verify whether the perceived parental behaviors are actually related to the empathic dimensions, in specific cultural contexts, and if they are able to predict the affective and cognitive components of empathy.

The moderation effect of sex on the relationship between empathy and parental care and overprotection

The possible effect that the perceived parental behaviors of care and overprotection have on empathy might not be direct, but it may be also related to the offspring’s’ sex. Mothers and fathers might have differentiated behaviors toward their sons and daughters because of the social expectations associated with sex and gender during their development (Ngai et al., 2018) that may, consequently, affect empathy. Children seem to learn most of their behaviors through modeling the actions of those who are close and have similar attributes as them, such as happens with their same-sex figures (Ruiz-Hernández et al., 2019). According to the authors, the caregiver’s sex might affect how the parent acts toward their children while the youngsters’ sex might influence how the offspring respond to and perceive their parents’ demands.

Empirical evidence seems to support the theoretical influence of the offspring’s sex over parenting. For instance, research suggests that women perceive their fathers as being more overprotecting towards them, whereas men have reported the perception that their fathers give them more autonomy (Xu et al., 2016). Male and female individuals also seem to rate their caregivers’ parenting differently, as mothers are often described as being more caring than fathers, especially according to their daughters (Ngai et al., 2018, Parker et al., 1979; Xu et al., 2016). Moreover, since mothers still spend more time with their offspring, it is expected that not only maternal and paternal behaviors be different but that the mothers’ behaviors influence more their children’s development than the fathers’ parenting styles (Chan et al., 2022; Kwan et al., 2022). In relation to empathy, a recent Chinese study detailed how gender moderated the association between parental control, which refers to the parental dimension of overprotection, and affective empathy (Fei et al., 2021). According to the authors, the increase in parental control led to a significant decrease in the levels of empathic concern reported by both male and female participants; still, men’s affective empathy was more affected by their fathers’ controlling behaviors than women’s empathic concern levels as it is possible that same-gender parenting behaviors’ influence is a feasible explanation for the observed outcomes. Sex also had a moderating effect on the relationship between maternal care and both affective and cognitive dimensions of empathy in a Chinese sample (Geng et al., 2022). Therefore, the offspring’s sex seems to be an important variable to be controlled when conducting analysis related to parental behaviors and empathy.

While the cited studies have analyzed how sex may also have a role in the prediction of empathy dimensions by perceived parenting behaviors, they did not investigate both parental care and overprotection within the same samples (Fei et al., 2021; Geng et al., 2022). In addition, the theme of parental care and overprotection’s effect on empathy was also verified in a study with Chinese offenders; nonetheless, participants’ sex was not a controlled variable as the sample was only composed of male individuals (Wang et al., 2021). Therefore, there is a literature gap when assessing the relationship between empathy and perceived parental behaviors and adding participants’ sex as a meaningful variable. The research conducted by Lyons et al. (2017), in the United Kingdom, seems to be the first and only to evaluate all the cited variables of empathy, parental care, parental overprotection, and sex. Among its most relevant results, maternal overprotection was a statistically significant predictor of the affective empathy component for women. On the other hand, perceived paternal care and overprotection significantly predicted affective empathy, while perceived maternal care and paternal overprotection were predictors of cognitive empathy for male participants.

Cultural differences

The cited research contributed to the understanding of how parental behaviors and sex might benefit, or not, empathy’s development. However, it is possible that a Brazilian sample would not present the same results as the ones described in other cultures. Culture seems to have a key role in the comprehension of psychological elements and social abilities, including empathy (Zhao et al., 2019). A recent cross-cultural study, which evaluated empathy’s role during the first wave of COVID-19, reported that the participants’ country of residence was found to be the only predictor of the affective and cognitive dimensions of empathy (Butovskaya et al., 2021). The authors suggested that cultural differences regarding norms and institutions may affect individuals’ empathy levels since people from diverse cultural backgrounds may have specific behaviors and beliefs about how they should interact with each other. Although evidence of cultural influence over empathy is still scarce, the literature has shown that trait empathy, as it reflects a person’s general typical empathic attributes, is potentially affected by culture, especially when an interaction between culture and one’s biological sex is explored (Butovskaya et al., 2021; Zhao et al., 2019; Zhao et al., 2021).

Culture does not only affect empathy’s development, but it is also related to attachment styles and, consequently, to perceived parental behaviors. According to Keller et al. (2006), one of the main misconceptions regarding evolutionary psychology is the idea that context does not influence socialization strategies. The cultural context is a provider of meaning to a population or a group’s behaviors and dynamics, as it elicits behaviors to assume diverse forms in accordance with the environmental ambiance (Kaǧıtçıbaşı, 2007). Moreover, caregivers from different cultural backgrounds often present unequal socialization behaviors toward their children. Keller et al. (2006) defined three cultural orientations that influence parents’ values and beliefs in many countries or cultures: an autonomous self, an interdependent self, and an autonomous–relational self. Whereas Western industrial and middle-class societies are described as being typical examples of autonomous-self models, as they prioritize the support for separate and independent individuals (Kaǧıtçıbaşı, 2007; Keller et al., 2006), Latin American countries seem to have an autonomous-relational orientation (Keller et al., 2006), including Brazil (Putnam et al., 2019; Seidl-de-Moura et al., 2008).

The autonomous-relational parenting orientation is characterized by socialization strategies that are directed towards relatedness and independence, as both individual agency and integration into the family context are stimulated (Keller et al., 2006). Therefore, it is probable that a comparison of outcomes between Brazilian and British samples would not point out similar results. Regarding parenting behaviors, differences in parental control and warmth have been related to divergent cultural backgrounds (Kaǧıtçıbaşı, 2007). Even though the literature indicates that Brazil is an autonomous-relational country, a recent study reported that Brazilian fathers have more autonomous goals for their children than mothers (Putnam et al., 2019). Although more research is needed to evaluate the relationship between culture, sex, and parental behaviors, it is possible that the three variables be related and that they lead to relevant differences between results regarding empathy’s development in the Brazilian context and other cultural backgrounds.

The present study

As comparisons between studies may provide many advantages to psychology (Kaǧıtçıbaşı, 2007; Keller et al., 2006; Putnam et al., 2019), it is presumed that the conduction of a comparison to the study done by Lyons et al. (2017) in the Brazilian context may contribute to an amplified comprehension regarding parental factors and sex’s influence on the development of empathy. The decision of choosing this specific research as an inspiration and a comparison tool is not only limited to it being the first one to investigate all the cited variables in a unified model but also because sex appears to be necessary to lead theoretical and empirical advances in the field. Even though the current research is limited to comparing the results only in the discussion section, and, therefore, not using any statistical comparison, it is still expected that the discussion of differences between cultures help elicit important analogies or divergences among people from non-related cultural backgrounds. Hence, the present study’s objective consisted in investigating in what extension empathy, perceived parental care, and overprotection are affected by the offspring’s sex. This research’s main question regards how sex influences the relationship between perceived parental behaviors and empathy for Brazilian individuals. Cultural differences between Brazil and the United Kingdom were also discussed and consisted of some of the goals of the current study.

It is hypothesized that maternal care is positively associated with the variables representing the cognitive and affective dimensions of empathy for female participants. Similarly, it is expected that paternal care has a positive relationship with empathy variables for male respondents. However, parental overprotection is not anticipated as having any significant relationships with the empathy variables, regardless of the participant’s sex. The fourth hypothesis is that maternal care and paternal care act as predictors of the empathy variables while sex is also an important variable in the regression models. Finally, sex is predicted to be a significant moderator of the relationship between both paternal and maternal care and the empathy variables (as displayed in Figs. 1 and 2).

Fig. 1.

Fig. 1

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Path model illustrating the hypothesized relationships among maternal care, empathy variables, and sex

Fig. 2.

Fig. 2

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Path model illustrating the hypothesized relationships among paternal care, empathy variables, and sex

Method

Participants

Participated in the present study 477 Brazilian adult individuals of both sexes, among which 161 were men (33.8%). Ages varied between 18 and 59 years old (M = 31.28, SD = 11.34). Most of the respondents reported having an undergraduate degree (55.8%), being single (59.3%), and living in the Southeast region of Brazil (85.5%). Inclusion criteria involved participants being between 18 and 60 years old at the time of data collection and that they must have had frequent contact with both the biological mother and father during childhood and adolescence. Participants were invited to collaborate through email and social media contact. Consequently, data were collected online, and a convenience sample was used, through the snowball sampling technique.

Instruments

Perceived parental behaviors were measured by the Parental Bonding Instrument (Parker et al., 1979) in its translated and Brazilian-adapted version (Hauck et al., 2005). The scale was composed of 25 items and participants had to answer the items twice about their perceptions, as adults, of the behaviors that their fathers and mothers had towards them throughout childhood and adolescence that represent the bond established between them. The instrument is formed of two dimensions for each primary caregiver: maternal (12 items; α = 0.91) and paternal care (12 items; α = 0.91), and maternal (13 items; α = 0.87) and paternal overprotection (13 items; α = 0.85). The score of each item is obtained by a Likert-type scale of four points.

The Brazilian adaptation of the Empathy Quotient (EQ; Baron-Cohen & Wheelwright, 2004) resulted in a reduced version formed of 21 items (Castelhano-Souza et al., 2018), which was used to measure participants’ empathy. The instrument’s empathy assessment regards a 4-point Likert-type scale and it has four subscales: cognitive empathy (5 items; α = 0.78), emotional reactivity (5 items; α = 0.73), social abilities (5 items; α = 0.70), and empathic difficulties (6 items; α = 0.57). Among the dimensions evaluated by the EQ, only the “cognitive empathy” and “emotional reactivity” ones were analyzed in the present study because they reflect, respectively, the cognitive and affective aspects of empathy.

Empathy was also measured by the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI; Davis, 1983). The combined use of two or more scales to assess empathy may result in a more complex and better understanding of individuals’ empathic responses and is often utilized in the literature (Lyons et al., 2017; Parlar et al., 2014; Zhao et al., 2019; Zhao et al., 2021). The Brazilian version (Koller et al., 2001) presents 17 items divided into three subscales: empathic concern (7 items; α = 0.67), perspective taking (5 items; α = 0.63), and personal distress (5 items; α = 0.54). A 5-point Likert-type scale was used for response rating. The present research examined only empathic concern and perspective taking as representative variables of the affective and cognitive empathy dimensions, respectively. Although personal distress is often described as a component of empathy’s affective dimension, it refers to an aspect of the self and it shows inverse correlations with empathic concern (Davis, 1983). Thereby, personal distress might not accurately reflect empathy and even damage its evaluation (Kim & Han, 2018).

Procedures

The study was executed after the approval from the Brazilian Ethics in Research Committee and all respondents signed an Informed Consent Form approving their participation. The participants filled out the questionnaires at once, without taking any pauses, through an online form. It is estimated that it took between 20 and 30 min to fill in all the questions.

Statistical analysis

The relationship between empathy and the perceived parental behaviors of care and overprotection was verified through Pearson’s correlation method. Even though variables were found to have non-normal distribution when analyzed through the Kolmogorv-Smirnov and Shapiro-Wilk tests, the present study’s sample size is large enough to account for any normality issues (Field, 2018). Correlation analyzes were conducted separately according to the participants’ sex.

Multiple linear regression analyzes (enter method) were executed to investigate whether the perceived parental behaviors of care and overprotection would be able to predict different empathy dimensions. Sex was also added to the model as a moderator since men and women might have different recollections regarding the perceived parenting behaviors and because men and women receive diverse treatments according to cultural traditions. The condition of residual independence was assessed by both the Durbin-Watson coefficient and the standardized residual value, whereas the possible presence of outliers was identified by the estimate of Cook’s distance and Mahalanobis’s distance (Field, 2018). The four parental variables (maternal care, maternal overprotection, paternal care, and paternal overprotection) were inserted as predictor variables of each empathy dimension’s assessment. All the procedures were done in the SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) software.

Furthermore, moderation analyzes were conducted to verify if the impact of perceived parental behaviors on empathy would increase or decrease when the effect of sex is accounted for. This analysis was done in the PROCESS software, version 3.5, and sex was entered in all tested models as the moderator. The moderation tests were conducted for all the focal predictors (maternal and paternal care and overprotection) for all the dependent empathy variables.

Although the use of two instruments to measure empathy may deepen its assessment and discussion because of the theoretical and definitional divergences between the scales, it may also lead to some interpretation difficulties. To diminish such problems, it was proposed to combine both cognitive and affective dimensions of empathy derived from each used scale to create only one variable related to cognitive empathy and another to affective empathy. Another advantage of the use of composite variables is that it can control Type I error rate (Song et al., 2013). In the present research, both the association between empathic concern and emotional reactivity (ρ = 0.62, p < 0.001) and the relationship between perspective taking and cognitive empathy (ρ = 0.25, p < 0.001) were statistically significant. However, the correlation between the cognitive variables representing empathy was low (Dancey & Reidy, 2017). Consequently, to avoid Type I errors and to not incur interpretation inaccuracies as a consequence of the low association between perspective taking and cognitive empathy (Song et al., 2013), the current study’s authors opted that the results in reference to the four empathy dimensions were examined and reported separately (as to refer to the independent outcomes for cognitive empathy, perspective taking, emotional reactivity, and empathic concern) and together as two z-score standardized variables, named: combined cognitive empathy and combined affective empathy. No missing data methods were used in the current study since there was an absence of any missingness.

Results

Pearson correlation analysis results for each sex can be observed in Table 1. There were no significant correlations between perceived parental behaviors of care and overprotection and empathy for male individuals. Regarding female participants, significant outcomes were found for the relationships between paternal care and the variables of empathic concern (2.0% of shared variance), perspective taking (1.4% of shared variance), combined cognitive empathy (2.3% of shared variance), and combined affective empathy (1.7% of shared variance). Similarly, there were significant associations between maternal care and the dimensions of empathic concern (1.7% of shared variance), perspective taking (2.9% of shared variance), and combined cognitive empathy (2.0% of shared variance) for the female participants. Nonetheless, none of the empathy components was significantly associated with maternal or paternal overprotection.

Table 1.

Spearman correlation analyses for participants of both sexes (male individuals’ correlations are reported above the diagonal)

MCa MOb PCc POd ECe PTf CEg ERh CCEi CAEj
MCa - -0.26** 0.29** -0.13 0.12 0.12 0.068 0.11 0.12 0.13
MOb -0.44** - -0.26** 0.27** 0.050 -0.067 0.030 0.059 -0.028 0.062
PCc 0.34** -0.21** - -0.19* -0.048 -0.12 -0.043 -0.079 -0.11 -0.073
POd -0.19** 0.38** -0.27** - -0.013 -0.024 -0.020 -0.085 -0.029 -0.042
ECe 0.13* -0.014 0.14* 0.014 - 0.35** 0.11 0.55** 0.31** 0.87**
PTf 0.17** -0.11 0.12* -0.036 0.35** - 0.21* 0.51** 0.81** 0.49**
CEg 0.049 -0.014 0.11 -0.096 0.42** 0.24** - 0.41** 0.74** 0.30**
ERh 0.032 0.045 0.091 0.021 0.66** 0.33** 0.60** - 0.60** 0.89**
CCEi 0.14* -0.077 0.15* -0.086 0.49** 0.77** 0.81** 0.60** - 0.52**
CAEj 0.089 0.016 0.13* 0.019 0.91** 0.38** 0.56** 0.91** 0.60** -
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Note: aMC = Maternal Care bMO = Maternal Overprotection; cPC = Paternal Care; dPO = Paternal Overprotection; eEC = Empathic Concern; fPT = Perspective Taking; gCE = Cognitive Empathy; hER = Emotional Reactivity; iCCE = Combined Cognitive Empathy; jCAE = Combined Affective Empathy. * = p < 0.05; ** = p < 0.01

In relation to the multiple linear regressions analyzes, while the models for all the dimensions of empathy were tested, only four models were significant and also had perceived parental behaviors as statistically significant predictors: empathic concern (F(5, 414) = 7.68, p < 0.001; R2ajusted = 0.085), perspective taking (F(5, 414) = 2.74, p = 0.019; R2ajusted = 0.032), combined affective empathy (F(5, 414) = 6.91, p < 0.001; R2ajusted = 0.077), and combined cognitive empathy (F(5, 414) = 2.27, p = 0.047; R2ajusted = 0.027). Table 2 presents all the coefficients for the significant predictors.

Table 2.

Predictor variables of the empathy dimensions

Predictors Standardized Coefficients t Sig.
Beta
Empathic Concern
(Constant) - 15.77 < 0.001**
Maternal Care 0.14 2.50 0.013*
Maternal Overprotection 0.60 1.12 0.26
Paternal Care 0.55 1.08 0.28
Paternal Overprotection 0.029 0.56 0.58
Sex 0.27 5.51 < 0.001**
Perspective Taking
(Constant) - 16.20 < 0.001**
Maternal Care 0.14 2.51 0.013*
Maternal Overprotection -0.047 -0.84 0.40
Paternal Care -0.022 -0.41 0.68
Paternal Overprotection 0.003 0.055 0.96
Sex 0.12 2.38 0.018*
Combined Affective Empathy
(Constant) - -5.06 < 0.001**
Maternal Care 0.12 2.12 0.029*
Maternal Overprotection 0.085 1.57 0.12
Paternal Care 0.042 0.82 0.41
Paternal Overprotection 0.001 0.003 0.99
Sex 0.27 5.38 < 0.001**
Combined Cognitive Empathy
(Constant) - -2.36 0.19
Maternal Care 0.12 2.17 0.031*
Maternal Overprotection 0.004 0.072 0.94
Paternal Care 0.012 0.24 0.81
Paternal Overprotection -0.045 -0.84 0.40
Sex 0.12 2.34 0.020*
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Note: * = p < 0.05; ** = p < 0.01

Following moderation tests were conducted to assess if participants’ sex was able to moderate the relationship between perceived parental behaviors and the outcome variables of empathy. From all the tested models, only the interactions between parental care and sex to predict the empathy variables of perspective taking and combined cognitive empathy were significant, as displayed in Table 3. Whereas the relationship between paternal care and combined cognitive empathy was significant for female participants, the same pattern of result was not found for the dependent variable of perspective taking which may be related to the small size effect of the interaction (R2changed = 0.014) and its low impact on the sample.

Table 3.

Moderation significant effects

Coefficient (b) Standard Error t p
Perspective Taking
Constant 26.09 0.23 112.20 < 0.001**
Paternal Care (X) 0.097 0.023 0.41 0.68
Sex (W) 0.94 0.49 1.94 0.053
Paternal Care * Sex (X*W) 0.12 0.050 2.39 0.017*
Conditional Effect
Masculine -0.067 0.42 -1.620 0.11
Feminine 0.053 0.028 1.89 0.059
Combined Cognitive Empathy
Constant -0.0071 0.038 -0.019 0.85
Paternal Care (X) 0.0038 0.0038 0.99 0.32
Sex (W) 0.15 0.079 1.88 0.061
Paternal Care * Sex (X*W) 0.020 0.0082 2.48 0.014*
Conditional Effect
Masculine -0.0092 0.0068 -1.36 0.18
Feminine 0.011 0.0046 2.42 0.016*
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Note: * = p < 0.05; ** = p < 0.01

Discussion

The present study focused on investigating the effect of perceived parental behaviors of care and overprotection over empathy when the variable of sex is also accounted for. However, there were no significant results for male participants regarding the correlations and moderation models involving perceived parental behaviors and empathy dimensions. It is argued that the influence of parental behaviors over their child’s development seems to be more effective when there is a consonance between the caregiver’s sex and the younger individual’s sex (Ruiz-Hernández et al., 2019). Even though paternal participation in the raising of children has increased over the last decades, the maternal figure continues to be perceived as the family’s core, whereas the male figure tends to be more involved in playing activities than in care practices (Nelson-Coffey et al., 2019).

Although there seems to be a large emergence of cultural movements and changes that seek to promote sex equality, Brazil is a country that is still influenced by gender stereotypes that affect parental practices and roles (Benatti et al., 2020). A Brazilian study reported that offspring perceive their mothers as the main care figures as well as being the primary individual in charge of supervision and habit creation (Maia & Soares, 2019). In opposition, paternal behaviors of care and overprotection were found to be significant predictors of both affective and cognitive dimensions of empathy for male individuals in the British study executed by Lyons et al. (2017). It is possible that culture has had a role in the Brazilian outcomes for male participants. Individuals who experience more care and empathy from their parents during childhood and adolescence are often described as being more prone to express their feelings about other people than the offspring that had little intimate contact and relationship with their caregivers (Zahn-Waxler et al., 1991). However, as male caregivers are less present in their children’s lives (Benatti et al., 2020), it may be presumed that Brazilian boys would not have as much contact with a male empathy model and, because of that, they would be less inclined to express and report empathy than the male offspring from cultures where the fathers are more relevant models of socialization.

Among female participants, Brazilian individuals presented significant and low associations of empathy variables with maternal and paternal care, in consonance with what was proposed by the current study; besides, maternal care predicted, alongside the sex variable, empathic concern and combined affective empathy when assessing the complete sample. According to Lyons et al. (2017), the same-sex caregiver’s influence may be a prerequisite for the development of empathy’s affective dimension, as the authors also found similar results concerning their female participants. Nonetheless, not only do individuals tend to express more empathy and emotional warmth towards others when they were also the target of care and need satisfaction from their primary caregivers during childhood but mothers and fathers often show more efforts to maintain affective connections with their daughters in comparison to their sons (Zahn-Waxler et al., 1991). It is also suggested that women are more susceptible to the influences related to attachment behaviors from both of their parents while growing up (Chen et al., 2021). Consequently, it seems possible that Brazilian female participants experienced more care stemming from their parental figures and had more opportunities to develop interest and the ability to genuinely worry about other people’s well-being.

Maternal and paternal care also presented significant correlations with perspective taking and combined cognitive empathy for female respondents; likewise, maternal care also significantly predicted the cited variables when the complete participants’ sample was analyzed. Lyons et al. (2017) did not find such outcomes, as the authors argued that emotional warmth and care experiences that come from maternal models would be more important for their male offspring than for their female children. However, a recent study with a sample of Chinese medical students pointed out a tendency of higher maternal care impact on women’s cognitive empathy development (Geng et al., 2022). It is plausible that a lower perception of parental care during a person’s development culminates in lower perspective taking levels (Parlar et al., 2014). For an individual to be able to infer others’ thoughts and feelings, it is necessary that their parental models were sensitive and affectionate, and that the younger person felt understood and secure during their childhood (Lin et al., 2017). In consonance, more up-to-date literature emphasizes that both maternal and paternal care seem to be an important predictor of empathy’s cognitive dimension in women (Ma & Wang, 2021; Parlar et al., 2014; Wang et al., 2021). Hence, high parental care levels experienced through childhood tend to be related to both affective and cognitive empathy dimensions (Chen et al., 2021; Wang et al., 2021).

Parental overprotection did not show any significant relations or predictions about empathy dimensions for Brazilian participants, contrary to the outcomes observed by Lyons et al. (2017). While there is a lack of literature about parental overprotection’s effect on empathy, Chinese research also did not find meaningful results between the cited variables (Guo & Feng, 2017). The authors suggested that parental overprotection does not provide such influence, either to a negative or a positive extent, over the development of prosocial behaviors in collective cultures as it does in more individualistic and Western cultural contexts. In the Brazilian ambiance, parental overprotection may not be perceived as an excessive and negative form of control, but it may be mistaken as a support measure or as an exaggerated care practice (Teixeira & Alvarenga, 2016). The cultural beliefs may define what is considered “normal” or not “normal” in terms of perceived parental behaviors, such as overprotection and control, because of different interpretations by the offspring (Kaǧıtçıbaşı, 2007). According to the author, in autonomous-related cultures, parental control is often perceived as a manner of setting order, not as a demand for obedience and a lack of autonomy. Therefore, it is possible that parental overprotection did not have as high an impact on empathy development for Brazilian participants because of cultural specificities.

Sex was an essential variable to comprehend possible interactions between perceived parental behaviors and empathy’s dimensions in the Brazilian context since sex predicted all meaningful regression outcomes and every perceived parental behavior correlation with an empathy variable was only observed for female participants. Nonetheless, sex was a significant moderator when accounting just for the relationship between paternal care and the empathy dimensions of perspective taking and combined cognitive empathy. Paternal attachment, represented by behaviors that express trust, good communication, and lack of anger and alienation, was also found to be a predictor of empathy when gender was accounted as a moderator in Chinese research; moreover, this relationship was significant only for female participants (Chen et al., 2021). The authors suggest that women are more sensitive to paternal and maternal attachment influences than their male counterparts which can explain the importance of paternal behaviors over empathy. However, the present study’s outcomes are not in agreement with other recent research (Fei et al., 2021; Geng et al., 2022). The study conducted by Geng et al. (2022) reported that the cognitive dimension of empathy was significantly predicted by the interaction between sex and maternal care; besides, women had a higher slope in perspective taking. However, the authors did not find significant results for the interaction between sex and paternal care.

According to empirical evidence and the hypothesis proposed by the present research, it would have been expected to observe sex as a significant moderator of the relationship between maternal care and empathy since not only do mothers treat their sons and daughters differently (Boele et al., 2019; Ruiz-Hernández et al., 2019; Zahn-Waxler et al., 1991) but men and women also tend to show important divergences when expressing and reporting empathy (Baron-Cohen & Wheelwright, 2004; Davis, 1983; Fei et al., 2021). On the other hand, a multilevel meta-analysis that comprised 56 studies that evaluated parent-child relationship factors reported that gender did not moderate the associations between parent-child relationship quality, represented by the combination of the positive parental practice of support and the negative behavior of conflict, and empathy (Boele et al., 2019). According to the authors, as boys and girls go through different socialization processes during childhood and adolescence, the non-significant outcomes were not expected, in consonance with the hypothesis and results of the present research. Similarly, a three-level meta-analysis regarding attachment styles and empathy did not find sex to be a significant moderator of the interaction between the two mentioned variables (Xu et al., 2022). Although the current research has not focused on attachment styles, the review conducted by Xu et al. (2022) is still relevant since parental care and overprotection are behaviors that represent the parent-child dyad’s attachment (Parker et al., 1979). Thus, the literature seems to present conflicting empirical evidence of sex moderation and future studies would probably benefit from the addition of sex or gender to the models tested to verify interactions between parental behaviors and empathy.

Although not all the hypothesis and path model predictions were confirmed, maternal and paternal care seem to be important behaviors that influence empathy in female Brazilian individuals. Despite fathers’ low participation in people’s lives as they grow up (Benatti et al., 2020; Nelson-Coffey et al., 2019), women still are likely more sensitive to their parents’ expressions of care, which may impact their development and mental health (Chen et al., 2021; Geng et al., 2022). One can argue that even though the moderation analyses executed by the current study found sex to be a moderation variable in the paternal care prediction of cognitive empathy dimensions, the participants’ sex effect was not strong enough to moderate the interaction between maternal care and empathy. It is also noteworthy to point out that whereas sex moderated the relationship between paternal care and perspective taking, the comparative effects analysis did not find either sex to have a significant outcome, even though the results related to women were close to significance. That may be explained by the small size effect of the interaction.

One of the main goals of the current research was to compare the Brazilian outcomes to those reported in other studies with different backgrounds, especially in the context of the United Kingdom, as Lyons et al. (2017) also focused on verifying whether the participants and caregivers’ sex would affect the interactions and predictions between perceived parental behaviors and empathy dimensions. However, the comparison is only possible to be conducted regarding the discussion of results since it was not possible to compare the original British results in a statistical manner. Whilst some results were analogous, it was observed that empathy development in the Brazilian population does not occur in the same manner as in the British ambiance when sex and perceived parental care and overprotection variables are considered. Divergences in the comparison between cultures were expected, as empathy levels and parental practices are proposed to be affected by social norms and beliefs. Empathy seems to be higher for individuals that come from cultures that privilege behaviors of relatedness (Butovskaya et al., 2021), as in interdependent and autonomous-related cultural models (Keller et al., 2006). Regarding parental behaviors, parental control and overprotection are based on a cultural and social-normative basis, whereas parental care and affection tend to have similar evolutionary patterns and effects on offspring’s development across cultures (Kaǧıtçıbaşı, 2007). Even though there is a gap in the literature in assessing empathy, parental behaviors, and sex with a similar methodology in different cultural contexts, it is plausible that the relationships between the cited variables be influenced by the social models of independence, interdependence, and autonomous-related values and beliefs.

Conclusion

The current study proposed to address the participants’ sex as a relevant variable to the discussion about the impact of perceived parental behaviors of care and overprotection over empathy. Cultural bias was also undertaken into consideration, especially regarding the discussion comparison with the research done by Lyons et al. (2017). In that sense, the decision to carry out a study inspired by research done in another country (Lyons et al., 2017) makes it easier to understand the variables and their relationships with each other, besides allowing the evaluation of individuals that are not part of Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic countries or regions (WEIRD; Henrich et al., 2010). Nonetheless, the present research is limited in only allowing a comparison to be conducted in the discussion section since it was not possible to examine statistical contrasts between the two studies.

The perceived parenting behaviors of care and overprotection did not show associations with empathy for male participants. Since paternal figures are not as present and active to raise their children in Brazil, it can be hypothesized that they are not meaningful empathy models for their sons during their development. Moreover, the Brazilian context must have probably influenced the lack of significant outcomes related to the connection between parental overprotection and empathy’s dimensions due to the more natural interpretation that children have about overprotection in Brazil, which leads to the lower influence that this parental variable has over the development of prosocial behaviors. One of the main explanations for the current study’s results could be the autonomous-related model of socialization assumed by Brazilian individuals, which privileges independence and family-relatedness at the same time and offers relevant behavioral differences in comparison to parents from cultures that are more oriented toward independent socialization goals.

The biggest contribution of this study refers to the importance exerted by maternal care on empathy’s cognitive and affective dimensions’ development for female participants. Although this research has found low-size effects, a recent meta-analysis debated the overestimation of size effects that are considered medium or strong-sized in social psychology, as many studies cannot achieve them (Lovakov & Agadullina, 2021). According to the authors, as psychology research often evaluate constructs that are abstract and difficult to measure, low-size effects should still be considered important even if there are reservations to be specified.

One of the current study’s limitations is due to the use of self-report instruments as they can produce biased outcomes because of the social desirability phenomenon. In addition, the Parental Bonding Instrument is based on adult participants’ perceptions about the behaviors their parents had while they were children and adolescents, and it may not provide accurate information about parental practices. Selection criteria may also have been limiting factors for this research since only individuals that had strong contact with their biological mother and father while growing up were elected to participate. Future studies should use samplings formed by men and women who were raised by adoptive families, by only one primary caregiver, or by other family figures that are not their mother or father. Moreover, future research could also benefit from applying the same methodological parameters and criteria when comparing samples from different countries and cultures.

Even though there were limitations, this research is a pioneer in the theme of empathy, sex, and perceived parental behaviors of care and overprotection in the Latin-American context and, especially, in the Brazilian ambiance. Furthermore, it has allowed the comparison of the obtained results from a Brazilian population to those reported by Lyons et al. (2017) and it has provided better comprehension of how cultural differences impact the analyzed variables.

Declarations.

Author contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Data collection and analysis were performed by Luisa Braga Pereira and Angela Donato Oliva. The first of the manuscript was written by Luisa Braga Pereira and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Funding

No funds, grants, or other support was received for conducting and/or preparing the submitted work.

Data Availability

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available in the Science Data Bank repository, https://www.scidb.cn/s/R7VNzu.

Declarations

Competing interests

All authors declare having no affiliations with or involvement in any organization with any financial interest or non-financial interest in the work discussed in this manuscript.

Ethics approval

Approval was obtained from the ethic committee of the State University of Rio de Janeiro (protocol number 38885420.1.0000.5282, decision of approval number 4.541.589). The study was performed in consonance to the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki.

Consent to participate

Informed consent was obtained from all the participants that were a part of this study.

Footnotes

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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Associated Data

This section collects any data citations, data availability statements, or supplementary materials included in this article.

Data Citations

  1. Castelhano-Souza M, Mendes IAC, Martins JCA, Trevizan MA, Souza-Júnior VD, de Godoy S. 2018. Validação semântica das versões curtas das Escalas de Medição do Quociente de Empatia/Sistematização [Semantic validation of the short versions of the Empathy-Systemizing Quotient Scales] Article e3044. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed]
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Data Availability Statement

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available in the Science Data Bank repository, https://www.scidb.cn/s/R7VNzu.

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