← Kindness · 20 readings

Parenting Journal · Volume 2 · Issue 2 · Licensed source edition

The relationship between maternal and infant empathy: The mediating role of responsive parenting

Hang Liu; Yuning Zhu; Xiaoqi Cai; Zhengmei Ma; Lu Wang

Originally published 2022-12-22 · Frontiers in Psychology
Frontiers Media SA · DOI 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1061551 ↗

KindnessStructured task or observational assessmentCC BY (version not stated)
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Editorial reading guide · Kindness

What do I notice when my toddler sees someone who seems upset?

For the Kindness section, this study offers a way to examine infants’ responses to simulated distress and their mothers’ responsive behavior.

Who was studied?

33 infants and mothers from middle-income Chinese families

Age / stage: 11–30 months

Read with three questions

  1. How did the authors investigate infants’ responses to simulated distress and their mothers’ responsive behavior?
  2. Which actions were observed directly, and how closely does the task resemble family life?
  3. Did sensitivity observed in mother-infant interaction correspond with the infant’s response to simulated distress?

Keep the limits in view

The structured distress scenario involved 33 mother-infant pairs. Infant behavior in a brief task can differ from behavior at home.

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Attribution & reuse

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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.

CC BY (version not stated) · License notice ↗Original repository record ↗

Hang Liu; Yuning Zhu; Xiaoqi Cai; Zhengmei Ma; Lu Wang (2022). The relationship between maternal and infant empathy: The mediating role of responsive parenting Frontiers in Psychology. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1061551

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.