The Effect Of Childhood Emotional Neglect On Empathy

Childhood emotional neglect means that caregivers fail to give the children the love they deserve,lack of satisfaction of children’s emotional needs,and ignore the attention and understanding to their childrens’ psychological state and emotions.Compared to physical abuse,emotional abuse,which are applied to the person’s harm emotional neglect,emotional neglect,as a kind of "omission" phenomenon,lead to the individual the damage was not meet is not easy to find,and emotional neglect is less than physical abuse,emotional abuse and sexual abuse to bring acute,tremendous physical and mental damage,and has less impact than the body neglect of basic physiological needs for children,so emotional neglect is often ignored by the scientific research and the public.But in the long run,the impact of emotional neglect on individual’s physical and mental health is not weaker than physical abuse and sexual abuse.A large amount of research has found that childhood emotional neglect for the development of children and adult has many effects,such as emotion recognition problems,anxiety,and even internalizing problems such as depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.Such long-term neglect of emotional needs affects the development of individuals’ social functions,especially,affects the level of empathy.Empathy refers to the psychological process of perceiving and understanding the emotions of others,experiencing the feelings of others and making appropriate behavioral responses.This process plays an important role in interpersonal harmony.Empathy is divided into cognitive empathy and emotional empathy.For the early stages of adulthood,individual empathy is dominated by cognitive empathy.Most previous studies have found that emotional neglect will reduce the cognitive empathy ability of individuals.Emotional neglect is more likely to develop insecure attachment model,and there were a large number of studies have shown that unsafe attachment are associated with the ability of empathy,,that is individuals who experienced adverse during childhood is likely to lead to bad relationship with parents,they refused to empathize to parents,and they generalize the model to refuse to empathize to others.The object relation theory also believes that in the childhood of individuals,if nurturers can properly take care of their needs,tolerate and accept their emotions,and give appropriate responses,individuals will be able to establish a good connection with others,thus laying a foundation for accurately identifying others’ emotions in the future.Based on this,many researchers think that attachment patterns may affect the ability of the adverse childhood experience and feeling,although the existing literature that unsafe attachment mode will affect the ability of the adverse childhood experience and feeling relations,but is for a specific attachment avoidance or unsafe attachment attachment anxiety model to influence emotional neglect the effect of empathy ability is not clear.It has also been speculated that the mediating factors of emotional neglect that affect empathy,that is,the mediating role of insecure attachment patterns,but it is not clear whether it is the attachment avoidance model or the attachment anxiety model.This study assumes that the establishment of the attachment avoidance model may be an intermediary variable that affects the ability of empathy in childhood.Therefore,the first study of this study attempts to explore the specific attachment model of childhood emotional neglect affecting cognitive empathy.125 college students are used as the research object to study childhood emotional neglect,insecure attachment and empathy using a questionnaire survey method.The results found that childhood emotional neglect negatively predicts the development of individual cognitive empathy,and this effect is mediated by attachment avoidance.From this point of view,the experience of emotional neglect in childhood can reduce the cognitive empathy of individuals in early adulthood through the formation of attachment avoidance patterns.In addition to trait empathy,empathy is also highly dependent on specific situations with rich information.In addition to paying attention to other people’s facial expressions,the integration of scenes,sounds,body postures,verbal expressions is also necessary information to promote individuals to accurately recognize other people’s emotions and experience other people’s feelings,that is,whether individuals can accurately infer in a specific social interaction environment.This phenomenon is also defined as empathy accuracy.Therefore,in order to accurately measure the empathy accuracy of an individual,a specific situation needs to be constructed.Because social acceptance(a social situation in which individuals are accepted,encouraged,and welcomed by the surrounding environment)and social exclusion(individuals are excluded from certain social situations)are common social situations in daily life,which are closely related to the survival and development of individuals,and There is a strong correlation with emotional neglect.Therefore,the second study aims to explore the impact of childhood emotional neglect on the accuracy of empathy in specific situations of social acceptance and social exclusion.A total of 92 subjects participated in the experiment,with an average age of 19.83 years,standard deviation is1.56,including 52 females and 40 males.46(26 females)were randomly assigned to a social exclusion environment(SE),and 46(including 26 females)were assigned to a social acceptance environment(SI).The study used a group discussion paradigm to construct a social situation.Video recordings were made by 6 test allies(3 males and 3 females).In each video,only 3 test allies of the same gender appeared,two men in black coats.The ally and a ally in a gray coat,each video is 10 minutes long.In the video,three allies discussed a topic together,and in the video accepted by society,the three allies talked happily.In the video of social exclusion,allies in black coats talk happily,while they gradually reject allies in gray coats.Participants observed the three-person communication video social acceptance and social exclusion video(in fact,it was a pre-recorded ally exchange video).The study found that childhood emotional neglect individuals are not sensitive to the emotions of others in situations of social acceptance or social exclusion.To sum up,emotional neglect will reduce the individual’s cognitive empathy in adulthood,and establish contact through avoidant attachment,and whether it is a social acceptance situation or a social exclusion situation,emotional neglect will reduce the individual’s empathy accuracy.That is,high-emotional neglect individuals do not delight in the joy of others,and do not grieve with the sadness of others.The results of this research also have practical significance to a certain extent.First of all,the results of this research help understand the relationship between childhood emotional neglect and empathy,remind the public to attach importance to the growing environment of recognition,give children more care and companionship,and enable them to develop stronger empathy in adulthood;Secondly,this study reveals the lower level of situational empathy of emotionally neglected individuals.Low empathy accuracy may also be a protective factor for individuals who experienced emotional neglect to avoid potential or actual harms,making them feel more secure.