How Power Shapes Empathy: Authoritarian Parenting and the Developmental Cost to Children’s Minds
Tuesday, June 3, 2025.
Let’s start with a quiet moment that happens in thousands of homes every day.
A parent points to a character in a picture book and says, “He’s sad because he lost his toy.” Or: “She thinks her mom is mad at her.”
These little acts of storytelling are more than just teaching moments.
They are micro-rehearsals for a cognitive capacity that underpins empathy, cooperation, and social justice.
That capacity is known as theory of mind—the ability to recognize that others have thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and desires that may differ from our own.
A new study published in the International Journal of Behavioral Development suggests that this critical skill may be quietly hindered by something few developmental models consider: a parent’s belief in authoritarianism and social hierarchy.
The study reveals that parents who believe strongly in obedience, conformity, or group-based dominance tend to talk less about thoughts and feelings with their children—especially when the people in question belong to different ethnic or cultural groups.
And this reluctance isn’t just a conversational quirk.
It appears to carry real consequences: their children are less likely to develop robust theory of mind.
This isn’t about political slogans. It’s about what happens when rigid ideologies quietly constrict the early architecture of empathy.
What Is Theory of Mind? A Brief (and Deep) History
The term theory of mind (ToM) was introduced in 1978 by primatologists David Premack and Guy Woodruff, who posed a then-provocative question: Can chimpanzees understand that others have beliefs? (Premack & Woodruff, 1978).
This question launched a new field of research into social cognition and eventually became a developmental milestone in early childhood.
In humans, precursors to ToM emerge in infancy. By their first birthday, babies follow others’ gaze, react to others’ intentions, and begin to coordinate attention.
But a significant leap occurs between ages 3 and 5, when children begin to understand false beliefs—the idea that someone can hold a belief that is untrue and still act upon it. Passing a false belief test is the standard benchmark of theory of mind.
Yet ToM is not merely a cognitive abstraction. As scholars like Simon Baron-Cohen (1985), Alan Leslie (1987), and others have shown, it’s deeply connected to language exposure, family dynamics, and cultural narratives.
Perhaps most strikingly, children’s development of ToM is powerfully influenced by mental state talk—the extent to which caregivers explicitly discuss others’ thoughts, feelings, and intentions (Taumoepeau & Ruffman, 2006).
In short: ToM doesn’t just unfold naturally. It’s a social achievement, built through narrated empathy.
The Study: How Ideology Shapes Empathy at Home
In a 2024 study by Kong, Fraser, Elwina, and Ruffman, researchers recruited 79 mother–child pairs in New Zealand, all of European descent, with children aged two to nearly six years (Kong et al., 2024). The goal was to understand how parental beliefs about authority and hierarchy might influence children’s development of ToM.
To assess these beliefs, mothers completed standard psychological inventories measuring:
Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA): The belief in submission to authority, strict adherence to norms, and hostility toward outgroups (Altemeyer, 1981).
Social Dominance Orientation (SDO): The belief that certain groups are inherently superior and should dominate others (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999).
Researchers then asked the mothers to describe pictures to their children as if reading a storybook. Some images featured European (ingroup) children; others depicted Chinese (outgroup) children, all engaged in emotional or goal-directed actions.
Crucially, researchers analyzed how frequently mothers used mental state words—terms like “think,” “want,” “feel,” and “hope”—which are known to support ToM development.
The children, in turn, completed a set of ToM tasks including false belief assessments, desire differentiation, and basic emotion understanding. The study also controlled for confounding variables like child age, language ability, and maternal education.
The Findings: Less Talk, Less Mind
The study found that:
Mothers higher in RWA and SDO used fewer mental state words when describing outgroup (Chinese) children, suggesting reduced perspective-taking across difference.
This drop in mental state talk did not occur when describing ingroup (European) children.
More importantly, children of mothers with high RWA or SDO scores performed worse on theory of mind tasks, regardless of which photos they had seen.
This suggests a broader phenomenon: a parent’s ideological orientation doesn’t just shape what they say in a moment. It shapes the ongoing ecology of communication in the home—who gets mentalized, how often, and with what complexity.
Teaching Empathy in Hierarchical Homes: A Therapist’s Dilemma
If you’re a clinician working with families where one or both parents express rigid values around obedience, cultural superiority, or control, this study offers a subtle but important insight: empathy must be modeled before it can be practiced.
But here’s the paradox. In authoritarian-leaning households, emotional talk may be seen as weak, manipulative, or indulgent. Empathy may be coded as naïve. Asking “How do you think they feel?” might be met with discomfort—or outright resistance.
Here are therapeutic strategies that don’t directly challenge ideology but still support ToM development:
Introduce Emotion Vocabulary Through Stories
Rather than focus on the child’s emotions, use third-person narratives (e.g., books, shows, moral dilemmas) to model mental state talk. It feels safer—and less personal.
“In the story, the fox tricked the hen. What do you think the hen believed at first?”
Frame Empathy as Strength
Recast perspective-taking not as softness, but as strategic understanding—a skill that builds leadership, teamwork, and negotiation.
“Understanding what others want helps you solve problems faster.”
Use Predictive Mentalizing
Ask the child to predict what a character will do next based on their feelings or beliefs. This builds cognitive empathy without asking them to “feel sorry” for anyone.
“He thinks the box has candy. What’s he going to do next?”
Normalize Perspective Differences at Home
Highlight and celebrate when family members notice or respect different viewpoints.
“You guessed that Grandma might be tired before she said anything. That’s good thinking.”
By embedding theory of mind in routine interactions—rather than as an “empathy lesson”—you can work around ideological resistance while still planting seeds of perspective-taking.
Why This Matters: Empathy Is Not Optional
In a world increasingly fractured by polarization, misinformation, and moral rigidity, the ability to see another person’s point of view is not a luxury—it’s a civic necessity. This study reminds us that the roots of that capacity are not found in politics or policy but in parenting. In dinner table conversations. In how we describe strangers to our children.
If your worldview centers on dominance, order, and in-group loyalty, it may subtly train your child to mentalize selectively—to understand minds only when they’re familiar, safe, or compliant.
That’s not empathy. That’s tribalism with a smile.
And if we want the next generation to inherit something better, it starts with one small question, asked again and again:
“What do you think they’re feeling?”
Be Well, Stay Kind, and Godspeed.
REFERENCES:
Altemeyer, B. (1981). Right-wing authoritarianism. University of Manitoba Press.
Baron-Cohen, S., Leslie, A. M., & Frith, U. (1985). Does the autistic child have a “theory of mind”? Cognition, 21(1), 37–46. https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-0277(85)90022-8
Duckitt, J., Wagner, C., du Plessis, I., & Birum, I. (2002). The psychological bases of ideology and prejudice: Testing a dual process model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83(1), 75–93. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.83.1.75
Kong, Q., Fraser, H., Elwina, F. C., & Ruffman, T. (2024). What she believes or what she says? The relation between maternal social dominance orientation, right-wing authoritarianism, mental state talk, and children’s theory of mind. International Journal of Behavioral Development. https://doi.org/10.xxxx/ijbd.2024.xxxx
Leslie, A. M. (1987). Pretense and representation: The origins of “theory of mind.” Psychological Review, 94(4), 412–426. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.94.4.412
Premack, D., & Woodruff, G. (1978). Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 1(4), 515–526. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X00076512
Sidanius, J., & Pratto, F. (1999). Social dominance: An intergroup theory of social hierarchy and oppression. Cambridge University Press.
Taumoepeau, M., & Ruffman, T. (2006). Mother and infant talk about mental states relates to desire language and emotion understanding. Child Development, 77(2), 465–481. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2006.00882.x