'The word amae comes from the word amaeru, which, according to Japanese psychoanalyst Takeo Doi (he's the guy who basically made this term a thing), can be defined as "to wish to be loved." On top of this, it has connotations of a need for dependency and a request for indulgence of one's perceived needs. This amae type of relationship is the ideal for all close relationships in Japan. It starts with child and mother, but expands out to student and teacher, student and upperclassmen, salaryman and boss, husband and wife, etc. It's the senpai-kohai relationship in a nutshell. If everyone is able to indulge their needs into everyone else then everything will work out, or so Japanese society has been saying for quite a while now."

I've seen a number of Japanophiles quite taken with this idea of amae, popularized by psychoanalyst Takeo Doi in 1971. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Anatomy_of_Dependence

To me it sounds like a bunch of Freudian psychobabble or pseudoscience.

The author doesn't even really attempt to empiricially link Japanese amae and non-cognitive skills (persistence, self-control, curiosity, conscientiousness, grit, and self-confidence) in the specific case of Japan—where children should do better on the the Marshmallow Test, if this is accurate.

Tofugu has some great essays on learning Japanese, but this is not one.