Age and parous-experience dependent changes in emotional contagion for positive infant sounds
Nobuaki Mizuguchi, Kenji Kato, Sho K. Sugawara, Tatsuya Yoshimi, Yuta Goto, Kaori Takasu, Tadao Isaka

TL;DR
The study explores how age and childbirth experience affect women's emotional responses to positive infant sounds like laughter.
Contribution
It identifies that emotional resonance to positive infant sounds increases with age and childbirth experience.
Findings
Young parous and old nulliparous women showed stronger emotional resonance to positive infant sounds than young nulliparous women.
Emotional resonance for crying sounds did not differ across the groups.
Age and parous experience modulate emotional resonance for positive infant sounds.
Abstract
Emotional contagion is achieved by inferring and emotionally resonating with other persons’ feelings. It is unclear whether age-related changes in emotional contagion for infant sounds are modulated by the experience of childbirth or childcare. This study aims to evaluate changes in inference and emotional resonance for positive and negative infant sounds (laughter and crying) among women, based on age and parous experience. A total of 241 women (60 young nulliparous, 60 young parous, 60 old nulliparous, and 61 old parous) completed a web-based questionnaire. After listening to three types of infant sounds (laughter, cooing, and crying), participants responded with their valence for hearing infant sounds and estimated infant valence on an 11-point Likert scale. The analysis for emotional resonance revealed that the correlation coefficient between self and estimated infant valences was…
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Taxonomy
TopicsInfant Health and Development · Hearing Loss and Rehabilitation · Neuroendocrine regulation and behavior
