同胞共情:特点、影响因素及理论机制

Siblings Empathy: Characteristics, Influencing Factors and Theory

同胞之间的交流和互动更能促进彼此共情的发展。随着"全面二孩"政策的实行,同胞共情成为国内外研究者共同关注的焦点。本文在同胞的视角下提炼了同胞共情的共性特点和特异性特点,从个体、同胞、家庭等维度阐述了同胞共情的影响因素及理论机制,并尝试提出一个整合的理论假设框架。未来研究需要进一步注重文化,回归本土研究;加强双向机制研究,夯实理论框架;重视干预性研究,探索提升同胞共情的方法。

With the end of China’s over 30 years one-child policy and the implementation of the two-child policy, a large number of children went through the transformation from single-child to first-born child, and sibling’s empathy has been the focus of researchers. Sibling’s empathy referes to psychological phenomena that siblings who are genetically related to each other, linked by family bonds, and have at least one common natural parent, feel each other’s emotions, perceptions, and thoughts. Siblings are the first contacts and the closest partners of young children. To some extent, children spent more time with their siblings than with their parents, and their communication and activities would promote the development of mutual empathy. In order to understand the characteristics, influencing factors, and theory of sibling empathy, this review was arranged as follows:First, we distinguished and discussed common(reciprocity, difference, enthusiasm) and specific characteristics:(1) Reciprocity. Due to the persistence of time spent with siblings and the indivisibility of blood relationship, the development of sibling’s empathy showed an interactive model, which older brothers and sisters would promote empathy towards the younger brothers and sisters, and vice versa.(2) Difference. Siblings’ beliefs about their relationship, attachment level to their parents and age or birth order were associated with differences in the development of sibling empathy. Within a certain range, older siblings tended to develop empathy better than younger siblings. Among the siblings, the empathy of sisters developed better than that of brothers.(3) Positivity. The interaction between siblings helped the development of sibling’s empathy, which would bring many benefits to the contemporary life of siblings, e.g. directly promote children’s social, emotional and cognitive development. In addition, sibling’s empathy was often higher than that of peer empathy, showing the characteristics of specificity with ordinary peer empathy. Second, we discussed the factors involving four dimensions: individual, sibling, family and society. Individual factors: Attachment relationship, self-control ability, temperament, curiosity, and motor coordination ability were associated with the empathy.Sibling factors: First, types of sibling relationship. Positive relation of siblings were more conducive to promoting the development of empathy, such as warmth and intimacy. Second, sex composition. The same-sex sibling groups were more likely to have competitive relationships and lead to anxiety and depression. However, the same-sex siblings could understand each other better, thus the development of the same-sex empathy of siblings was better. In terms of sex composition, the influence on the development of empathy was in the order of sisters, brothers, brother and sister, sister and brother. Third, age interval. Great age interval in siblings was associated with a more positive influence of older siblings on the development of empathy of the younger ones. Fourth, birth order and frequency of interaction and moderate conflict were also associated with sibling’s empathy.Familial factors. Mother sensitivity, parental emotional expression, and parent-child interaction were positively associated with sibling’s empathy. Social factors which included contextual factors and interpersonal communication were also associated with sibling’s empathy.Third, we discussed that the development of sibling’s empathy was very important and explained by different theories. For example, social learning theory, attachment theory, ecosystem theory, etc. We attempted to propose an integrated hypothesis framework of sibling’s empathy by integrating existing literature, which consisted of four dimensions: individual, sibling, family and society. The development of sibling’s empathy was not only affected by a single factor, but these four factors interacted, and the development of sibling’s empathy could also affect these factors adversely.