A longitudinal study in Israel found that fathers with more pronounced alexithymia before the birth of their child provided worse parental care when the baby was three months old. At two years of age, children of these fathers tended to exhibit fewer prosocial behaviors, but only if the father experienced at least an average increase in testosterone levels when subjected to a stressful parenting task. The paper was published in Hormones and Behavior.
Prosocial behavior refers to voluntary actions intended to benefit others, such as helping, sharing, and showing empathy. It begins to develop in early childhood, influenced by both biological and social factors, including genetics, parenting, and cultural norms. Young children gradually learn to consider the needs and emotions of others either through imitation or reinforcement—for example, being rewarded for prosocial behavior.
As they grow, cognitive and emotional development, particularly empathy and perspective-taking, play a crucial role in shaping prosocial behavior. Social environments, such as schools and peer interactions, further reinforce prosocial norms and cooperative behavior. Prosocial behavior in childhood is associated with many other positive developments later in life, including better academic readiness, stronger relationships with peers and teachers, improved problem-solving and planning skills, and greater attention control.
Study author Osnat Zamir and colleagues sought to explore whether coparenting quality—that is, how well parents work together to care for the child—mediates the relationship between fathers’ alexithymia before the birth of the child and the child’s prosocial behavior at two years of age. They hypothesized that fathers with more pronounced alexithymia would provide lower-quality coparenting, which, in turn, would result in lower prosocial behavior in their children.
Alexithymia is a psychological trait characterized by difficulty in identifying, understanding, and expressing emotions. Individuals with this trait tend to struggle with interpersonal relationships and regulating their own emotions.
The study included 105 cohabiting heterosexual couples expecting a baby. Fathers ranged in age from 23 to 42 years, with an average age of 32, while mothers had an average age of 30.
Data collection occurred at three time points: during the third trimester of pregnancy, three months after the baby was born, and when the child was two years old. Some couples left the study during this period, so data from only 74 couples were available when the child reached two years of age. At each data collection point, study participants received the equivalent of approximately $71 in the local currency for their participation.
The first data collection involved a laboratory visit where participants completed an assessment of alexithymia using the Toronto Alexithymia Scale. Fathers also completed a version of the Inconsolable Doll task, before and after which saliva samples were collected to measure testosterone levels and any changes in response to the task.
The Inconsolable Doll task simulates a stressful parenting situation. The apparatus consists of a computerized doll resembling a realistic six-week-old baby in appearance, size, weight, and sound. The simulator was programmed not to respond to participants’ attempts to soothe it but to cry at varying intensity levels for two minutes, followed by 20 seconds of quiet, before resuming. The task lasted a total of 10 minutes. While the mother completed the alexithymia assessment and other questionnaires, the father underwent the task.
During the second study visit, parents reported their coparenting quality using the Coparenting Relationship Scale. When the child reached 24 months, the family attended the third study visit, during which the child completed two prosocial behavior tasks.
In the first task (the Marker Task), the experimenter pretended to accidentally drop a marker, then directed the child’s attention to it, observing whether the child would attempt to pick it up and return it. The second task followed a similar structure but involved dropping a roll of tape instead of a marker.
The results showed that the Inconsolable Doll task indeed triggered an increase in fathers’ testosterone levels. Fathers with more pronounced alexithymia, as well as those who experienced a larger testosterone increase after the task, tended to exhibit lower coparenting quality when their baby was three months old. Lower-quality coparenting at three months was associated with fewer prosocial behaviors in the child at two years of age.
The researchers tested a statistical model proposing that higher alexithymia and greater testosterone increases in response to the Inconsolable Doll task would lead to lower-quality coparenting, which, in turn, would result in less prosocial behavior in the child at two years of age. The results suggested that this relationship was possible but only in fathers who experienced at least moderate testosterone increases following the Inconsolable Doll task.
“The current study illuminates a mechanism by which the interplay between alexithymia and testosterone reactivity in expectant fathers forecasts the child’s prosocial behavior at the age of two years. It shows that a greater tendency for alexithymia in fathers can predict a lower coparenting quality in the post-birth period, subsequently forecasting less prosocial behavior in two-year-old toddlers. Still, these longitudinal associations were evident only if fathers displayed average or high testosterone increases after a prenatal stressful parenting task,” the study authors concluded.
The study sheds light on an important psychological mechanism in parent-child interactions. However, it is important to note that the study participants were predominantly of middle or high economic status. Additionally, the study design does not allow for definitive causal conclusions regarding the links between alexithymia, coparenting quality, and children’s prosocial behavior.
The paper, “The intersection between alexithymia, testosterone reactivity, and coparenting in fathers predicts child’s prosocial behavior,” was authored by Osnat Zamir, Noa Oved, Ohad Szepsenwol, Roi Estlein, Jessica L. Borelli, Douglas A. Granger, and Dana Shai.
