Parenting Journal · Volume 2 · Issue 3 · Licensed source edition
Empathy and Parental Sensitivity in Child Attachment and Socioemotional Development: A Systematic Review from Emotional, Genetic, and Neurobiological Perspectives
Originally published 2025-04-04 · Children
Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI) · DOI 10.3390/children12040465 ↗
Editorial reading guide · Trust
How do researchers distinguish noticing an emotion from responding sensitively to it?
The review compares multiple study designs and constructs relevant to the emotional availability of caregivers.
Who was studied?
Research on caregiver empathy, sensitivity, child attachment and socioemotional development
Age / stage: Varied child ages in included studies
Read with three questions
- How do researchers distinguish noticing an emotion from responding sensitively to it?
- Which inclusion criteria and differences among the original studies matter for the authors’ conclusions?
- Which features of the study population (research on caregiver empathy, sensitivity, child attachment and socioemotional development) would matter when applying the findings in another setting?
Keep the limits in view
The 16 studies included varied designs and definitions of empathy, sensitivity and development. Evidence for one construct or outcome cannot be assumed to hold for the others.
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Original authorship, publication date, journal and DOI are preserved. This issue’s TRICK placement and reading questions are editorial additions, not claims made by the original authors.
Miriam Santana-Ferrándiz; Jesús Ibáñez-Pérez; Carmen Moret-Tatay (2025). Empathy and Parental Sensitivity in Child Attachment and Socioemotional Development: A Systematic Review from Emotional, Genetic, and Neurobiological Perspectives Children. https://doi.org/10.3390/children12040465
Permissions checked against the saved article notice; repository publication notices screened 2026-11-04. This is not a new peer-review decision. The source authors and publishers are not represented as endorsing this issue.