Graduation Year

2016

Document Type

Open Access Senior Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Psychology

Reader 1

Judith LeMaster

Reader 2

Kevin Carlson

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© 2015 Atika M Gupta

Abstract

Limited research has been conducted on biracial people. Of the current research that examines mother’s cognitive empathy towards her child, there is little focus on how the differences in perceived racialization of the child (child is perceived as racially similar, dissimilar, or mixed in comparison to his or her mother) may influence mother’s cognitive empathy towards her child. The current study will question whether perceived phenotypic racialization of the child, race of the mother, gender of the child, and diversity of the neighborhood that the mother and child live in influence mothers’ cognitive empathy towards their children. The participants will be 480 mothers who are Asian (120), Black (120), Hispanic (120), and White (120), whose first-born child is biracial, male or female, and between the ages of 7 and 10. Participants will complete an adapted version of the Parent Development Interview (PDI), coded with a modified version of the Parent Affective and Cognitive Empathy Scale (PACES). The results will show that there are significant differences in how mothers empathize with their children due to a range of variables. The findings will add to the literature on biracial people and may help aid future studies on the implications that differing levels of cognitive empathy have on mother-child relationships and development.

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