Oxytocin system gene methylation is associated with empathic responses towards children.

Empathy is an essential component of sensitive caregiving behavior, which in turn is an important predictor of children's healthy social-emotional development. The oxytocin (OXT) system plays a key role in promoting sensitive parenting and empathy. In this study, we investigated how OXT system gene methylation was associated with empathic processes in nulliparous women (M age = 23.60, SD =0.44)-measuring both physiological facial muscle responses and ratings of compassion and positive affect to affective images depicting children. Linear mixed effects analyses demonstrated that lower methylation levels in the OXT and OXTR genes were related to enhanced empathic responses. The effect of OXT system gene methylation on empathic processes was partly qualified by an interaction with individual variations in women's care motivation. Our findings provide experimental evidence for an association between the methylation of OXT system genes and empathy.

• Publication year

  2021

• Venue

  Psychoneuroendocrinology

• Publication date

  2021-12-01

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine, Psychology

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2021.105629PMID 34973541
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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