A study on the meditational factors between maternal rejection and children’s behaviours
The purpose of this study was to determine if children’s emotional regulation and empathy take on a mediator function between maternal rejection and children’s behaviours. Data were collected from a sample of 103 mother-child dyads (49 boys and 54 girls aged from 6 to 13 years) recruited in three grade schools from mostly francophone families. Children and their mother completed questionnaires in order to document maternal rejection and acceptance perceived by the children, their emotional regulation, their empathy and their prosocial and antisocial behaviours. Four mediational models were tested using the PROCESS program (Hayes, 2013). A bootstrapping technique of 10000 iterations enabled to determine that maternal rejection was indirectly associated with children’s prosocial and antisocial behaviours through their emotional regulation. However, maternal rejection was not indirectly associated with children’s behaviours through their empathy. Future studies including larger samples and using more concrete empathy measures are necessary.