Effects of multidomain environmental and mental health factors on the development of empathetic behaviors and emotions in adolescence

Abstract

Empathy is at the core of our social world, yet multidomain factors that affect its development in socially sensitive periods, such as adolescence, are incompletely understood. To address this gap, this study investigated associations between social, environmental and mental health factors, and their temporal changes, on adolescent empathetic behaviors/emotions and, for comparison, callous unemotional (CU) traits and behaviors, in the early longitudinal Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development sample (baseline: n = 11062; 2-year follow-up: n = 9832, median age = 119 and 144 months, respectively). Caregiver affection towards the youth, liking school, having a close friend, and importance of religious beliefs/spirituality in the youth's life were consistently positively correlated with empathetic behaviors/emotions across assessments (p<0.001, Cohen's f = ~0.10). Positive family dynamics and cohesion, living in a neighborhood that shared the family's values, but also parent history of substance use and (aggregated) internalizing problems were additionally positively associated with one or more empathetic behaviors at follow-up (p<0.001, f = ~0.10). In contrast, externalizing problems, anxiety, depression, fear of social situations, and being withdrawn were negatively associated with empathetic behaviors and positively associated with CU traits and behaviors (p<0.001, f = ~0.1-0.44). The latter were also correlated with being cyberbullied and/or discriminated against, anhedonia, and impulsivity, and their interactions with externalizing and internalizing issues. Significant positive temporal correlations of behaviors at the two assessments indicated positive (early) developmental empathetic behavior trajectories, and negative CU traits' trajectories. Negative changes in mental health adversely moderated positive trajectories and facilitated negative ones. These findings highlight that adolescent empathetic behaviors/emotions are positively related to multidomain protective social environmental factors, but simultaneously adversely associated with risk factors in the same domains, as well as bully victimization, discrimination, and mental health problems. Risk factors instead facilitate the development of CU traits and behaviors.

Fig 1. Summary of conducted analyses.

Primary analyses (A) were based on the optimal set of environmental, mental health and temperament variables selected through LASSO for each empathetic outcome, separately at baseline and follow-up. Primary analyses (B) investigated the relationship between empathetic behaviors and emotions at the two assessment points and its moderation by changes in environmental, mental health and temperament factors. Additional analyses focused specifically on mental health (particularly anxiety and depression) and correlations with empathetic behaviors/emotions and temperament. The latter’s moderating effect on the relationship between anxiety and depression and empathetic behaviors/emotions was also assessed. Separate analyses were conducted for baseline and follow-up.

Fig 2

Distribution of mental health factors in the cohort at baseline (top) and follow-up (bottom). In both bar graphs, these factors are sorted based on prevalence at baseline. For factors associated with questions on a scale ‘Not true’, ‘Sometimes true’, ‘Always true’, prevalence for the combined sometimes and always true responses is provided. Note that anxiety and depression values may be an overestimate due to ABCD coding issues. For factors extracted from the parent diagnostic interview, yes to any related questions (for past or present) was assumed as a positive response.