Parenting Journal · Volume 2 · Issue 3 · Licensed source edition
Parental reflective functioning and internalizing symptoms predict altruistic prosocial behaviour in children
Originally published 2025-02-17 · The British Journal of Developmental Psychology
Wiley · DOI 10.1111/bjdp.12551 ↗
Editorial reading guide · Kindness
How do I explore what my child thought someone else might need?
The authors examine parents’ understanding of mental states and children’s altruistic behavior.
Who was studied?
233 children assessed at baseline and one year later
Age / stage: 6–13 years
Read with three questions
- How did the authors investigate parents’ understanding of mental states and children’s altruistic behavior?
- Was the proposed family influence measured before the outcome, and who remained at follow-up?
- How did the study operationalize altruistic behavior separately from the child’s internalizing symptoms?
Keep the limits in view
Two observations a year apart help establish sequence, but do not rule out changes in the family or child between observations.
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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.
Daniel McGlade; Helena Rutherford; Eamon McCrory; Nikolaus Steinbeis (2025). Parental reflective functioning and internalizing symptoms predict altruistic prosocial behaviour in children The British Journal of Developmental Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjdp.12551
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.