The contribution of empathy to the relationship between adverse childhood experiences and pathological concern

Adverse childhood experiences have been found to impact psychological wellbeing, including interpersonal functioning. Empathy has commonly been studied as a prosocial behavior, but empathy is not always adaptive or an easy task. When empathy is maladaptive, an individual gives up their own needs to care for another person. However, the role that maladaptive empathy plays in the relationship between adverse childhood experiences and pathological concern has not been investigated. The present research aimed to study the combined predictive power of adverse childhood experiences and empathy on pathological concern using the revised Adverse Childhood Experiences scale (ACE; Finkelhor et al., 2015), the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI; Davis, 1980) andthe Pathological Concern Questionnaire (PCQ; Shavit et al., 2014). Participants (N = 171) completed a series of self-report questionnaires to evaluate adverse childhood experiences, empathy and pathological concern. We predicted that adverse childhood experience(s) would be predictive of pathological concern and that adverse childhood experiences and empathy may together have a combined effect. Multiple regression analyses confirmed our hypotheses that adverse childhood experiences and empathy predict pathological concern. Exploratory analyses revealed the unique role of maladaptive empathy, not adaptive empathy, in predicting pathological concern. Potential empirical and clinical implications are addressed to potentially help understand the combined role of adverse childhood experiences and empathy on pathological concern.