Mother-Adolescent Relationship and Empathy:
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Date
2016
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Publisher
University of Management and Technology
Abstract
Bowlby’s (1990) theory of attachment suggests that the bond between mother-child plays a prototype of all forthcoming relationships of adolescents. The aim of this research is to explore the impact of mother-child relationship on adolescent empathy and adolescent positive and negative experiences. The sample size was 232 adolescents who were enrolled in government and private schools. These participants are recruited through simple random sampling technique. The age range was 11-18 years (M=14.71, SD= 2.27). Results demonstrates that there is a positive correlation between mother-child relationship and empathy, pro-social empathy, positive experiences and negatively correlated to negative experiences of adolescents. Moreover, the findings of this research also confirm that female adolescents show significantly high level of empathy, pro-social empathy, affective empathy and negative experiences as compared to male adolescents. Furthermore, simple regression analysis reveals that mother-adolescent relationship is a positive predictor of adolescent positive experiences, empathy and negative predictor of adolescent negative experiences. Also, adolescent positive experiences are positively predicted pro-social empathy. Besides this, mediated pathway couldn’t be tested due to an insignificant correlation between positive and negative experience and empathy. In conclusion, along with adolescents’ own experiences, mothers attitude towards their child influence their forthcoming relationships. Similarly, if this dyad of mother-adolescent is unhealthy, it may lead toward the psychological as well as pathological problem in adolescent later life. This research may contribute to create awareness among mothers about the effect of their relationship on adolescent empathy and adolescent positive and negative experiences.
Description
Supervised by: Dr. Farzana Ashraf
Keywords
Mother-adolescent relationship, Adolescence Positive and Negative Experience, BS Thesis