Abstract
Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) have been proven to affect overall well-being, impacting physiological, psychological, and interpersonal functioning. Empathy is often regarded as cooperative behavior, but empathy is not always adaptive. Empathy becomes maladaptive when one disregards personal needs to care for another individual. Pathological concern, a compulsive need to care for another person, seems conceptually related to maladaptive empathy. The current study intended to assess the ability to predict pathological concern based on adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and empathy. Participants (N = 171) completed a sequence of self-report questionnaires to assess ACEs, empathy, and pathological concern. Multiple regression analyses confirmed ACEs and empathy simultaneously predict pathological concern. The unique role of maladaptive empathy was revealed through exploratory analyses. Clinical and empirical implications are discussed, and future research directions are suggested to help understand this predictive relationship.
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The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in “The contribution of empathy to the relationship between adverse childhood experiences and pathological concern” at https://www.openicpsr.org/openicpsr/workspace?goToPath=/openicpsr/175002&goToLevel=project.
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Katherine J. Siegler and Andrew F. Luchner. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Katherine J. Siegler, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Siegler, K.J., Luchner, A.F. The role of early adverse experience and empathy in the prediction of pathological concern. Curr Psychol 43, 7952–7958 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-023-04983-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-023-04983-6