Tuesday, June 11, 2024

Parental Correlations Prove Nothing

SciAm reports:
Empathy can help people build strong friendships and close family ties. A new study reinforces the power of teaching and practicing empathy, especially during adolescence.

New results from a long-term study published in the journal Child Development found that teens who received “empathic care” from their mother (the only parent included in the study) were able to pay it forward and show empathy to their close friends. The research further suggests that parental empathy is passed down from generation to generation: teenagers who developed empathy skills were more likely to have healthy adult relationships and a supportive parenting style with their own children more than a decade later.

No, this does not show any value to empathy in parenting.

It just shows a correlation between mothers and children. Such correlations might be entirely explained by genes. There is no way a study like this can show that a parenting strategy is beneficial.

No comments: