Crime & Delinquency

Article Volume 55 Number 4

October 2009 586-599
© 2009 SAGE Publications
The Role of Empathy and 10.1177/0011128708321359
http://cad.sagepub.com
Parenting Style in the hosted at
http://online.sagepub.com

Development of Antisocial
Behaviors
Megan Schaffer
Stephanie Clark
Elizabeth L. Jeglic
John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York

This study examined the relationship among parenting, empathy, and antisocial
behavior. Two hundred forty-four undergraduate students attending an urban
university completed self-report questionnaires assessing their antisocial
behavior, empathy, and mothers’ and fathers’ parenting styles. Support was
found for a model in which maternal permissive parenting contributed
directly and indirectly to antisocial behavior, through its effects on cognitive
and emotional empathy development. Findings are discussed in relation to
the current literature on empathy, parenting, and adult antisocial behavior.

Keywords: antisocial behavior; empathy; parental authority style

T heoretically and in practice, a relationship between decreased levels

of empathy and increased antisocial behavior is believed to exist
(D’Antonio, 1997; de Kemp, Overbeek, de Wied, Engels, & Scholte, 2007;
Hunter, Figueredo, Becker, & Malamuth, 2007; Miller & Eisenberg, 1988;
Robinson, Roberts, Strayer, & Koopman, 2007; Shechtman, 2003). For
example, in practice, providing empathy training to incarcerated sex offend-
ers has become increasingly popular (Hanson, 2003). Nevertheless, empirical
evidence supporting this relationship is equivocal (Jolliffe & Farrington,
2004; Miller & Eisenberg, 1988).

Authors’ Note: Address correspondence to Megan Schaffer, MA, John Jay College of
Criminal Justice, Department of Psychology, 445 West 59th Street, New York, NY 10019;
e-mail: mschaffer@gc.cuny.edu.

586

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 Schaffer et al. / Empathy, Parenting, and Antisocial Behavior 587

In another body of literature, substantial support has been found for a

relationship between early parental care and the development of antisocial
behavior in adolescence. That is, robust evidence has been acquired demon-
strating the existence of a positive relationship between permissive and
authoritarian parenting and antisocial behavior (Ehrensaft et al., 2003;
Knutson, DeGarmo, & Reid, 2004; Narusyte, Andershed, Neiderhiser, &
Lichtenstein, 2007; Reti et al., 2002; Roche, Ensminger, & Cherlin, 2007;
Smith & Farrington, 2004; Thornberry, Freeman-Gallant, Lizotte, Krohn, &
Smith, 2003).
A review of these two literatures suggests that an examination of the
effects of third variables, such as parenting style, on the relationship
between empathy and antisocial behavior may be pertinent and important.
Yet few studies have attempted to examine how parenting style and empa-
thy level may interact and so contribute to the development of antisocial
behavior. This study aims to fill this gap. Specifically, we proposed a model
in which childhood exposure to permissive parenting contributed both directly
and indirectly, through its effect on empathy, to antisocial behavior.

Empathy and Antisocial Behavior

The conceptualization of empathy has recently been expanded to include

both cognitive and affective components. According to de Kemp and col-
leagues (2007),

the affective [or emotional] component of empathy involves the vicarious

experience of emotions consistent with those of others. The cognitive com-
ponent involves understanding another’s feeling whether by means of simple
associations or more complex perspective taking processes. (p. 6)

When compared to earlier conceptualizations of empathy, which focused

solely on the affective component (Miller & Eisenberg, 1988), this expanded
definition allows for a more sophisticated understanding of empathy and the
relationships between different types or components of empathy and behavior
(Davis, 1983a; de Kemp et al., 2007).
As stated, the few studies that have attempted to quantify the relationship
between empathy and antisocial behavior have found ambiguous results
(Blair, Monson, & Frederickson, 2001). A recent meta-analysis found a
negative relationship between empathy and antisocial behavior; however,
the magnitude of the relationship reported across individual studies varied,

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588 Crime & Delinquency

and a significant minority of included studies found no correlation between

antisocial behavior and empathy (Jolliffe & Farrington, 2007). These results
mirrored the inconsistent findings summarized and discussed in an earlier
meta-analysis evaluating the relationship between empathy and aggressive
and externalizing behavior (Miller & Eisenberg, 1988).
In interpreting the results from their meta-analysis and the earlier meta-
analysis, Jolliffe and Farrington (2004) suggested that the inconsistent find-
ings across the individual studies could be attributed to the investigators’
reliance on insufficient methodologies—specifically, ones that did not
allow for the effects of third variables to be examined. The researchers also
suggested that the use of unclear, insufficient (and different) operational-
izations of empathy and antisocial behavior contributed to the disparate
results found across studies.

The Effect of Parenting on the Development

of Antisocial Behavior

Although empirical support for the relationship between empathy and

antisocial behavior is inconsistent, numerous studies have found support for
the impact of early parental care on child and adolescent behavior.
Specifically, low parental warmth and inconsistency (Barnow, Lucht, &
Freyberger, 2005; Thornberry et al., 2003), parental rejection (Barnow
et al., 2005; Beck & Shaw, 2005; Raine, Brennan, Mednick, & Mednick,
1996), authoritarian or harsh and punitive parenting (Grogan-Kaylor,
2005), and permissive or disengaged parenting (Beck & Shaw, 2005; Frick,
2006; Hawkins et al., 2000) have all been established as risk factors for the
development of antisocial behavior in children and adolescents. More
recently, authoritarian parenting has been linked to increased antisocial
behavior in adulthood (Verona, Hicks, & Patrick, 2005; Verona & Sachs-
Ericsson, 2005). In other words, whereas supportive parenting styles have
been linked to empathy development in children, an understanding regarding
the influence of parenting styles on adolescent and adult empathy levels is
in its infancy (Soenens, Duriez, Vansteenkiste, & Goossens, 2007).
In sum, theory and research have suggested probable links between
parenting style and empathy, parenting style and antisocial behavior, and
low empathy and antisocial behavior in adulthood (de Kemp et al., 2007;
Reti et al., 2002; Soenens et al., 2007). However, our understanding of the
relationship between empathy and antisocial behavior and the influence of
third variables on this relationship remains limited. Furthermore, few

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 Schaffer et al. / Empathy, Parenting, and Antisocial Behavior 589

formal investigations of causal pathways to adult antisocial behavior have

been undertaken (Jolliffe & Farrington, 2004). This study aimed to fill these
gaps in knowledge by exploring how permissive and authoritarian parent-
ing contribute to the development of cognitive and emotional empathy and
antisocial behavior in a sample of urban college students. Specifically, we
proposed two models: First, emotional empathy, or the ability to experience
the emotions of others, was hypothesized to mediate the relationship
between nonideal parenting styles and antisocial behavior; second, cogni-
tive empathy, or the ability to take another’s perspective, was hypothesized
to mediate the relationships between permissive and authoritarian maternal
parenting styles and antisocial behavior. The hypothesized models are
presented in Figure 1.

Method

Sample and Participants

Two hundred forty-four students from an urban university participated in
the current study as part of a course research requirement. Table 1 presents
a summary of the demographic characteristics of the sample. Participants
were asked to complete self-report questionnaires online, and in exchange
for their participation, they received course research credit. The survey took
approximately 2 hours to complete. The study was approved by the
Institutional Review Board at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
The majority of participants were in their first year of college (66.8%, n =
163). The average age of participants was 20.7 years, ranging from 18 to 46
years. Seventy-one percent (n =174) of participants were female. Almost half
of participants identified themselves as Hispanic (45.9%, n = 112), whereas
approximately 20% identified themselves as either non-Hispanic Caucasians
(20.5%, n = 50) or non-Hispanic Africans or African Americans (18.9%, n =
46). Half of all participants affiliated themselves with the Catholic religion
(50.8%, n = 124). Almost 40% said that their current family income and/or
the annual income in their childhood home was equal to or less than $20,000.
Finally, 6.1% (n = 15) of participants said that they had been arrested, and
0.4% (n = 1) said that they had been convicted of a crime against a person.

Measures
The following measures were used to capture the variables of interest in
this study.

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590 Crime & Delinquency

Figure 1
The Hypothesized Models

Emotional Empathy

Permissive Maternal Parenting

Antisocial Behavior

Authoritarian Maternal Parenting

Cognitive Empathy

Permissive Maternal Parenting

Antisocial Behavior

Authoritarian Maternal Parenting

Self-Report Delinquency Scale. The Self-Report Delinquency Scale

(Elliot, Huizinga, & Ageton, 1985) is a 31-item self-report measure that
assesses the frequency and diversity of an individual’s involvement with
antisocial activities in the past year, including property damage, theft,
assault, and substance use. Higher scores indicate more frequent and diverse
engagement in antisocial acts. The measure has been found to have good
reliability and validity, including in use with college student samples
(Williams, McAndrew, Learn, Harms, & Paulhus, 2001). Cronbach’s alpha
for this sample was .94, suggesting that this scale retained its unidimen-
sional factor structure in our sample.

Interpersonal Reactivity Index. The Interpersonal Reactivity Index (Davis,

1980) is a 28-item multidimensional self-report measure that assesses an
individual’s thoughts and feelings in a variety of situations. Items are scored
on a 5-point Likert-type scale, with higher scores indicating that the item
describes the person well. The scale has been found to have good test–retest
reliability and good concurrent and construct validity (Davis, 1983b). Of the
four subscales that compose the measure, only the scores on the Empathic
Concern and Perspective Taking subscales were used. Higher scores on the
Empathic Concern subscale indicate that the individual tends to experience

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 Schaffer et al. / Empathy, Parenting, and Antisocial Behavior 591

Table 1
Demographic Characteristics
Characteristic n (%)

Age
18-22 200 (82.0)
Older than 22 44 (18.0)
Gender
Female 174 (71.3)
Male 70 (28.7)
Ethnicity
Hispanic 112 (45.9)
Caucasian 50 (20.5)
African American 46 (18.9)
Asian 15 (6.1)
American Indian 1 (0.4)
Other 20 (8.2)
Religion
Catholic 124 (50.8)
Jewish/Muslim/Protestant/Buddhist 30 (12.2)
Other religion 56 (23.0)
No religion 34 (13.9)
Current annual family income
Less than $10,000 47 (19.3)
$10,000-$20,000 47 (19.3)
$20,001-$30,000 53 (21.7)
$30,001-$40,000 33 (13.5)
$40,001-$50,000 22 (9.0)
More than $50,000 42 (17.2)
Annual income of the childhood home
Less than $10,000 27 (11.1)
$10,000-$20,000 67 (27.5)
$20,001-$30,000 40 (16.4)
$30,001-$40,000 38 (15.6)
$40,001-$50,000 28 (11.5)
More than $50,000 44 (18.0)
Arrest
Yes 15 (6.1)

compassion for others more often; higher scores on the Perspective Taking
subscale indicate that an individual frequently takes another’s viewpoint.
Employing these two seven-item subscales as independent measures of
cognitive and emotional empathy follows a convention utilized by many
current empathy researchers and is supported by validity and reliability stud-
ies (Davis, 1983b; Duriez, 2004; Jolliffe & Farrington, 2004; Spinella, 2005).

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592 Crime & Delinquency

In our sample, Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for the Perspective Taking and
Empathic Concern subscales were .75 and .74, respectively.

Parental Authority Questionnaire. The Parental Authority Questionnaire

(Buri, 1991) is a 60-item measure of parenting style based on Baumarind’s
parental authority classification scheme, which remains the most common
method used to classify and describe parenting style. It is completed by the
child of the individual whose parenting style is being assessed, and it
involves his or her rating, on a 5-point Likert-type scale, the applicability
of each statement to his or her mother or father. According to the Baumarind
scheme, there are three types of parental authority styles: permissive,
authoritarian, and authoritative. Permissive parents are relatively noncon-
trolling and rarely punish their children. Authoritarian parents are strict and
punitive with their children. Meanwhile, authoritative parents are charac-
terized as being reasonable and warm disciplinarians (Buri, 1991). To cor-
rectly describe each parent’s style according to the Baumarind scheme, the
measure has six 10-item subscales. A higher score on a subscale indicates
that the mother or father being rated employs more aspects of that style in
his or her parenting. The scales have strong test–retest reliability, inter-
nal reliability, and high discriminate validity (Buri, 1991; Gillis, Berry,
Douglas, & Evans, 2006). For this study, only scores on the Permissive and
Authoritarian subscales were used (i.e., scores that capture parenting styles
considered less than ideal). Furthermore, because preliminary factor analysis
revealed that participants were not able to identify their fathers as being
permissive or authoritarian, only scores capturing the parenting style of the
participants’ mothers were included in the final model. Cronbach’s alpha
coefficients for the Permissive subscale and the Authoritarian subscale for
the mothers were .85 and .90, respectively.

Results

In this study, path analysis, as performed by AMOS 5.0 (Arbuckle, 2003),

was used to test the hypothesized relationships among empathy, antisocial
behavior, and an individual’s experience of his or her mother’s parenting
style. Table 2 presentes sample mean scores and standard deviations for the
variables included in the model.
Results from path analyses indicate that the hypothesized models fit the
data well. Specifically, for Model 1 (emotional empathy) and Model 2 (cogni-
tive empathy), the chi-square test, which assesses the overall goodness of fit,

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 Schaffer et al. / Empathy, Parenting, and Antisocial Behavior 593

Table 2
Mean Scores of Participants on Administered Measures
Measure M (SD)

Antisocial behavior
Self-Report Delinquency Scale 17.9 (31.9)
Empathy
Interpersonal Reactivity Index
Empathic Concern subscale 19.9 (4.9)
Perspective Taking subscale 17.3 (5.2)
Maternal authority style
Permissive subscale 25.1 (6.8)
Authoritarian subscale 31.6 (7.7)

was nonsignificant, χ2(1, N = 244) = .068, p > .05, and χ2(1, N = 244) = .068,
p > .05, respectively (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2000). The comparative fit index
(Bentler, 1980) for each model also indicates that the models fit well, Model
1 = 1.00, Model 2 = 1.00 (i.e., both over .95; Bentler, 1992; Hu & Bentler,
1999). Finally, the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA), which
estimates the lack of fit in a model when it is compared to a perfect model,
shows that the models were not significantly different from a statistically per-
fect model, Model 1 = 0.00, Model 2 = 0.00 (i.e., less than .05; Browne &
Cudeck, 1993).
Figure 2 shows the models and the standardized regression weights for
structural paths. In these models, the relationships between permissive par-
enting and empathy, whether cognitive or emotional, and empathy and anti-
social behavior are significant. Because the three paths between the predictor
variable (permissive maternal parenting), the potential mediating variable
(cognitive or emotional empathy), and the outcome variable (antisocial
behavior) were all significant, no formal tests for mediation were performed.
That is, the inclusion of the paths between the predictor and the third variable
and between the third variable and the outcome measure in each model did
not render the predictor to outcome path nonsignificant. This result precludes
the potential for an occurrence of a mediating relationship between the pre-
dictor and the third variable (Baron & Kenny, 1986; Holmbeck, 1997).

Discussion

In this study, significant relationships were found between antisocial

behavior and low levels of cognitive and emotional empathy. Furthermore,

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594 Crime & Delinquency

Figure 2
Results of the Tests of the Hypothesized Models

Emotional Empathy

–.22** –.16*
.10

Permissive Maternal Parenting

–.19**
Antisocial Behavior
.06
Authoritarian Maternal Parenting

Cognitive Empathy

–.13* .01 –.13*

Permissive Maternal Parenting

–.21**
Antisocial Behavior
.05
Authoritarian Maternal Parenting

*
p < .05. **p < .01. All parameter estimates are standardized.

support was found for a model in which permissive, but not authoritarian,
maternal parenting contributed to low levels of empathy and antisocial
behavior in young adulthood. Our study is one of the first to propose and test
a causal pathway to adult antisocial behavior that includes social ability
(i.e., empathic abilities) and parenting variables (Knutson et al., 2004).
Of particular importance among our findings is the impact of permissive
parenting on empathy and antisocial behavior development. That is, our
results show that lax parenting influences antisocial behavior through its
direct effect on behavior and through its effect on hindering the development
of empathic abilities, which also contribute to behavioral tendencies. This
finding adds needed explanation to findings that show parenting style to be
an important predictor of antisocial behavior (Knutson et al., 2004).
Furthermore, it suggests that dysfunctional parenting and low empathy may
contribute to antisocial behavior, an additive effect that has been obscured in
some multivariate analyses that have found the effects of dysfunctional
parenting on antisocial behavior in children to be moderated by empathy
level (Frick, 2006).
Interestingly, permissive, but not authoritarian, maternal parenting style
is associated with decreased empathy and antisocial behavior development.
Authoritarian and permissive parenting styles have been independently

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 Schaffer et al. / Empathy, Parenting, and Antisocial Behavior 595

linked to antisocial behavior (Grogan-Kaylor, 2005; Pittman & Chase-

Lansdale, 2001); however, our findings add support to emerging research
that suggests that uninvolved parenting styles (i.e., low monitoring and
supervision), as opposed to punitive parenting styles, better predict anti-
social behavior as children age (Ehrensaft et al., 2003; Reti et al., 2002).
Based on this sample, composed largely of minority adults, our findings
expand on recent research that shows that antisocial behavior among minor-
ity young people, as opposed to Caucasian youth, is more robustly associated
with maternal disengagement than with punitive parenting (Grogan-Kaylor,
2005; Roche et al., 2007).
In addition to taking an important first step toward understanding the
process through which parenting styles influence the development and main-
tenance of antisocial behavior in adulthood, this study makes important con-
tributions to the literature on empathy and antisocial behavior. In direct
contrast to the findings from the meta-analysis by Jolliffe and Farrington
(2004), our findings indicate that emotional empathy is more strongly associ-
ated with antisocial behavior than cognitive empathy is. Jolliffe and Farrington
examined the strength and direction of the relationship among cognitive empa-
thy, affective empathy, and offending. Results of their analysis indicated a
strong negative relationship between cognitive empathy and offending and a
weak negative relationship between affective empathy and offending. The dif-
ference in our findings may best be explained by the differences in the samples
that we and Jolliffe and Farrington studied. In their meta-analysis, Jolliffe and
Farrington included only studies evaluating the relationship between empathy
and criminal offending. As a result, most studies in their analysis concerned
male offenders. Meanwhile, 71.3% of all sample members in our study were
female; almost half identified themselves as ethnic minorities; and only 6.1%
indicated that they had been incarcerated.
Our findings, when evaluated in light of our sample composition, provide
important information about the role of empathy in antisocial behavior
among females. Jolliffe and Farrington (2007) recently found that empathy
is related to self-reported offending among violent and high-rate young
female offenders but not other types of female offenders. In other words,
whereas low empathy is related to all types of offending for males, empathy
level was only found to be a significant correlate of infrequent or nonvio-
lent female offending. In our study, in which all types of antisocial behavior
were evaluated—from minor acts such as petty theft to more serious types
of antisocial behavior—empathy level is significantly related to antisocial
behavior, which suggests that the spectrum of prosocial behavior in females
is dependent on empathy development as it is in males.

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596 Crime & Delinquency

In sum, our study provides important information about antisocial devel-

opment in the important and understudied nonincarcerated young adult pop-
ulation. This study adds support to an emerging literature that highlights the
influence of one’s early experiences with his or her mother on adult behav-
ior (Reti et al., 2002; Verona et al., 2005; Verona & Sachs-Ericsson, 2005).
Our results provide support for the importance of empathy in predicting anti-
social behavior, even when the influence of social variables (i.e., parenting)
linked to antisocial behavior are included in the model (i.e., controlled for),
an idea that stands in direct contrast to the findings recently reported by
some researchers (Frick, 2006; Jolliffe & Farrington, 2007).

Limitations and Future Directions

The limitations to this study suggest directions for future research. Self-
report measures were chosen because they provide an efficient, cost-effective
means of collecting data. Self-report measures are also recognized as the best
means currently available for obtaining accurate and complete information
about an individual’s antisocial behavior (Jolliffe & Farrington, 2004). Asking
individuals to self-report information about long-ago relations, however, may
be less than ideal, because resulting data may be inaccurate owing to recall
problems. To get the most accurate data, future studies may wish to obtain
multiple measures of each construct. This study, as one of the first to use path
analysis in this body of literature, suggests a feasible direction for the incor-
poration of such measurement into study design. Structural equation modeling
allows individuals to obtain multiple measures of one variable as a means of
refining the measurement of a construct (Byrne, 2001).
Although prospective studies may still offer the most thorough information—
and, therefore, understanding—of how antisocial behavior develops, such
studies are time-consuming and expensive. Utilizing path analysis or struc-
tural equation modeling to analyze survey data may provide a feasible,
timely, and cost-effective manner to improve current understanding of risk
factors for antisocial behavior. The employ of structural equation modeling
and path analysis is valuable in that it allows for complex interactions
among the risk factors (and protective factors), relationships that have long
been hypothesized (Moffitt, 1993) but rarely studied (Farrington, 2000;
Gibson, Piquero, & Tibbetts, 2001), to be discerned and quantified. Future
studies should subject a wider array of known risk factors for antisocial
behavior, such as biological factors and social, community, and other familial
variables (Augustino, 2006; Knutson et al., 2004; Reti et al., 2002; Spinella,
2005), to this type of multivariate analysis.

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 Schaffer et al. / Empathy, Parenting, and Antisocial Behavior 597

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Megan Schaffer is a fourth-year forensic clinical psychology PhD student at John Jay College
of Criminal Justice, City University of New York. Her research interests include suicidal and
aggressive behavior and depression. Before attending CUNY, she received her BA from the
College of William and Mary. She currently serves as an adjunct professor at John Jay College.

Stephanie Clark has recently completed her master’s in forensic psychology at John Jay
College of Criminal Justice. Her research interests include factors affecting antisocial and sui-
cidal behavior, treatment evaluation for sex offenders, and procedural justice judgments in a
restorative justice context.

Elizabeth L. Jeglic is an associate professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Her
research interests include the development and evaluation of treatment programs for suicidal
and offending populations.

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