Parents’ empathy and child attachment security A brief review

The present review examined the association between parents’ empathy and quality of child-parent attachment relationships. A systematic search yielded five published empirical studies, including nine effect sizes. A three-level meta-analysis yielded a significant, moderate and positive association of r = .27 between empathy of the parent and child attachment security. It was concluded that parental empathy is significantly related to child attachment security. The magnitude of the effect size is comparable to the effect sizes found in meta-analyses on the relation between parental sensitivity, parental mentalization, and child attachment security. Future studies should investigate the relation between parents’ (cognitive and affective) empathy, their internal working models of attachment, and their child’s attachment security.