Early maternal touch predicts prosocial behaviour in adolescents: the mediation role of attachment

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Maternal touch is heavily involved in interactions between mothers and children. However, the effects of maternal touch on child development have been relatively less explored. Based on the touch-scaffolded model of human prosociality, the current study aims to directly examine the relation between early maternal touch and prosocial behaviour in adolescence. We recruited 572 junior high school students and measured their prosocial behaviour, maternal touch in childhood, and attachment to mothers. Results showed that retrospective self-report of maternal touch in childhood positively predicted compliant prosocial behaviour and sympathy in adolescence. Besides, the attachment to mothers mediated the above relations. Our findings provided an initial empirical support for the touch-scaffolded prosociality model and suggested the importance of tactile interactions between mothers and children in daily parenting practice.