The purpose of this study was to examine effects of mother's attachment and empathy on social competence in young children. Subjects of this study were 298 mothers of young children aged 3-5 years old attending 8 kindergartens located in Chungbuk prov...
The purpose of this study was to examine effects of mother's attachment and empathy on social competence in young children. Subjects of this study were 298 mothers of young children aged 3-5 years old attending 8 kindergartens located in Chungbuk province. Data were analyzed by frequency, percentage, Cronbach's α, t-test, F-test, Tukey post-hoc test, Pearson's product-moment correlation coefficient using the SPSS 12.0 program, and path analysis was done using AMOS 7.0 program.
The results of this study were as follows:
First, there were statistically differences in mother's attachment according to parent's educational level and monthly family income. Additionally, there were statistically differences in mother's empathy according to mother's age, occupation, religion and monthly family income. Moreover, there was a difference in young children's social competence according to young children's gender, mother's educational level and monthly family income.
Second, mother's secure attachment had a direct effect on mother's cognitive empathy. Mother's insecure attachment had a direct effect on mother's behavioral empathy while mother's avoidant attachment did on mother's agitated emotional empathy.
Third, mother's cognitive, behavioral and agitated emotional empathy had direct effects on young children's positive social competence. However, mother's agitated emotional empathy only had a direct effect on negative social competence.
Fourth, mother's cognitive, behavioral, and agitated emotional empathy had mediated the effect of mother's attachment on young children's positive social competence. However, there were no mediated effect of mother's empathy on negative social competence.