Antheus’ Effect in the Intergenerational Transmission of Attachment Styles and its Importance for Adult Education

In ancient Greece, a little known myth tells us that Hercules could not defeat the feeble Antheus because the latter was continuously gaining strength from his mother, Gaea. According with this myth, our research was based on the assumption that there is an inter-generational transmission of empathy and attachment styles. In our investigation we involved 90 families (270 respondents), children and both their parents. The results confirm, in part, our hypotheses. Thus, the children's empathy and attachment styles are positively related to the empathy and the attachment styles of their parents. We will further discuss the importance of these findings for adult education.