Predictive roles of empathy and enmeshment on defense styles

This study examines the associations between cognitive empathy, affective empathy, enmeshment and psychological defense styles including mature, neurotic and immature factors. To assess cultural differences, culture values were also assessed. The sample consisted of 316 people aged between 18 to 39. Affective and Cognitive Measure of Empathy (ACME), Young Schema Questionnaire (YSQ-SF3), Defense Styles Questionnaire (DSQ-40) and Individual Culture Values Scale were used in this study. Correlation analyses, hierarchical regression analysis and moderation analysis investigating potential interactions were conducted. The results showed that enmeshment negatively predicted mature defenses while positively predicting neurotic and immature defenses. Cognitive empathy significantly explains a small amount of variance on mature defenses. Affective empathy predicted immature defenses significantly in negative direction. Exploratory analysis implied that enmeshment moderates the relationship between affective empathy and immature defenses as enmeshment increases the negative association gets weakened while a decrease in enmeshment strengthens the negative association. In a non-clinical young adult sample, it was found that enmeshment might be an important indicator of impaired psychological health. Further, it was found that although capacity of affective empathy is not necessarily a cue for mature defenses, it might be regarded as a signal for a baseline capacity above immature level of defenses.