Affect expression in mother–infant interaction and subsequent attachment development☆
Section snippets
Participants
Participants in the study were 101 healthy firstborn infants (43 girls and 58 boys) and their primary caregivers. Exclusion criteria were single parent status, lack of familiarity with the German language, major birth complications, birth weight <2500 g, and twin births. The sample was recruited from the maternity wards of two public hospitals in Giessen, a city in central west Germany. After delivery, all eligible mothers were visited by staff members and invited to participate in the study. Of
Maternal affect expression in mother–infant interaction (4, 8, and 12 months)
The mother–infant interaction episodes were scored for maternal positive and negative affect expression and openness of affect expression at 1-min intervals using the 5-categorical scales “Emotion” and “Authenticity/Self-Congruency” of the Mannheim Assessment Battery (Mannheimer Beobachtungsskalen zur Mutter-Kind-Interaktion im Säuglingsalter; MBS-MKI-S) by Esser, Scheven, Petrova, Laucht, & Schmidt (1989). The categories of the emotion scale refer to annoyed-tense, neutral, positive, and
Preliminary analysis
Gender of child and maternal education level (dichotomized by median split) were not significantly related to attachment security (χ2 (1) = 1.14; χ2 (1) = 2.22). In addition, with only a few exceptions, the 4, 8, and 12 months infant and mother affect expression variables showed no association with gender of child and maternal education level (rpbis coefficients between −.18 and .11). The exceptions were: positive associations between mother's education level and her positive affect expression at 8
Discussion
In the present study, the question has been addressed of whether attachment security is predictable from preceding maternal affect expression characteristics in mother–infant interaction. It had been expected that the mothers in subsequently securely attached dyads would show more positive and negative affect and more open affect expression.
At 4 months, we found highly positive maternal affect accompanied by negative or neutral infant affect preceding the development of an insecure attachment
References (29)
- et al.
Affect, attachment, and maternal responsiveness
Infant Behavior and Development
(1994) Communicative depth: Soundings from developmental psychopathology
Infant Behavior and Development
(2007)- et al.
The role of maternal affect attunement in dyadic and triadic communication
Infant Behavior and Development
(2007) - et al.
Parental expectancies and the development of infant temperament
Infant Behavior and Development
(2003) Communication in early infancy: An arena of intersubjective learning
Infant Behavior and Development
(2007)- et al.
A longitudinal study of emotion expression and personality relations in early development
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
(1999) - et al.
Patterns of attachment: a psychological study of the strange situation
(1978) - et al.
Mutually responsive orientation between parents and their young children: Toward methodological advances in the science of relationships
Developmental Psychology
(2006) - et al.
The ontogeny of social information gathering
Child Development
(1996) - et al.
The Pensylvania Infant and Family Development Project. III. The origins of individual differences in infant–mother attachment
Child Development
(1984)
Mothers’ self-reported control of their preschool children's emotional expressiveness: A longitudinal study of associations with infant–mother attachment and children's emotion regulation
Social Development
Attachment and loss
A darwinian legacy to understanding human infancy. Emotional expressions as behaviour regulators
Annuals of the New York Academy of Sciences
Emotions regulation: Influences of attachment relationships
Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development
Cited by (17)
The association between childhood maltreatment and emotion regulation: Two different mechanisms contributing to depression?
2015, Journal of Affective DisordersCitation Excerpt :Although further research is needed to determine the specific contextual and process-related factors underlying the relationship of emotional neglect to behavioural avoidance, and emotional abuse to rumination, research in attachment provides a potential organising theoretical structure. Children with caregivers who are consistently emotionally unavailable are at greater risk for developing an avoidant attachment style, which is characterised by a lack of responsiveness to and involvement with the primary caregivers (Pauli-Pott and Mertesacker, 2009). The results from the current study suggest that childhood emotional neglect may likewise result in a generalised pattern of passive behavioural avoidance, which places the individual at risk for low levels of positive reinforcement that may be subsequently related to depressive symptoms (Martell et al., 2001).
Family context assessment in a public health study
2014, Gaceta SanitariaCitation Excerpt :The second sub-scale refers to the Stimulation of social and emotional development and includes: Emotional expressiveness, which describes the quality of interactions and the emotional regulation between parents and children; the Setting of limits and optimal frustration, which reflects the strengthening of resilience in the family context; Promotion of self-esteem and autonomy, which describes factors related to the child carrying out his/her responsibilities in daily life; and Interaction with the mother during the interview, which assesses the quality of the relationship. Key publications on this subject include the papers by Belsky,9 Lamb10 and Pauli-Pott and Mertesacker.11 The third sub-scale groups are those variables related to the Organisation of the social context and physical environment and includes variables measured throughout the Developmental History, authored by Pettit et al.12, which are: Paternal involvement, which describes the participation of the father in the bringing up of the child, the quality of his interaction with his son/daughter and his contribution to domestic chores; this variable has been systematically identified by research as a protective factor for child development 10, Quality of substitute care, which assesses the stability and sensitivity of non-maternal care; Relationship with the extended family and social support network, which assesses the frequency and quality of interaction between the nuclear family and the extended family;Stability of the child's social relationships and parental interest therein, which assesses whether the child has a stable network of friends; Relationship with school, reflecting the frequency and degree of involvement of the parents with the child's school; and Diversity of experiences, in the sense that this represents a characteristic of the setting for the child's development, a variable that assesses the frequency and quality of the new and different experiences that the parents expose their child to in daily life.6,13,14
Maternal physiological dysregulation while parenting poses risk for infant attachment disorganization and behavior problems
2017, Development and PsychopathologyMothers' emotional reactions to crying pose risk for subsequent attachment insecurity
2011, Journal of Family PsychologyThe First 20,000 Strange Situation Procedures: A Meta-Analytic Review
2023, Psychological Bulletin
- ☆
The research for this article was supported by a grant from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)—Grant PA 543/2-1, 2-2, 2-3.