Sibling relationship dynamics relate to young adults' empathic responding

Abstract

ABSTRACT Existing research concerning empathy development has primarily focused on the role of parents, culture, and education but has overlooked the role of siblings. This current retrospective study investigates the association between the quality of sibling relationships in young adults and their cognitive and affective empathy processes. Cognitive empathy refers to understanding and/or reflecting on another person’s viewpoint, while affective empathy refers to responding in sentiment to another’s emotional response. A total of 205 young adults participated in the study and completed questionnaires examining their sibling relationship quality and empathy. Strong positive relationships were observed between affective empathy and sibling relationship quality, which suggests that siblings may play a unique role in shaping each other’s affective empathy development. Young adults with a sibling who made a positive impact on them had higher sibling relationship quality and affective empathy scores. Additionally, female participants reported higher affective empathy and quality relationship with their siblings than male participants.