Longitudinal Relationships Between Reflective Functioning, Empathy, and Externalizing Behaviors During Adolescence and Young Adulthood.

Longitudinal Relationships Between Reflective Functioning, Empathy, and Externalizing Behaviors During Adolescence and Young Adulthood. Child Psychiatry Hum Dev. 2019 Jul 15;: Authors: Morosan L, Ghisletta P, Badoud D, Toffel E, Eliez S, Debbané M Abstract Reflective functioning (RF) refers to the understanding of one's own and others' behaviors in terms of mental states, whereas empathy entails the abilities to understand (cognitive empathy) and to share (affective empathy) the emotions of others. Low RF and low empathy have been previously related to externalizing behaviors, such as aggression and rule breaking. However, few longitudinal studies have simultaneously examined the relationships between these variables during adolescence. The aim of the present study is to investigate the longitudinal effects of both RF and empathy on potential changes in externalizing behaviors over time, in a group of 103 adolescents and young adults from the general population assessed repeatedly up to four times. We conducted multilevel analysis in order to examine the effects of RF and empathy on the initial levels and the trajectories of externalizing behaviors over time, while accounting for other variables previously associated with externalizing behaviors, such as age, gender, internalizing problems, and cognitive abilities. The results suggest that the ability to reflect on behaviors in terms of mental states predicted a sharper decrease in ...
Source: Child Psychiatry and Human Development - Category: Child Development Authors: Tags: Child Psychiatry Hum Dev Source Type: research