Association of maternal interaction with emotional regulation in 4- and 9-month infants during the Still Face Paradigm

Abstract

This study used the Still Face Paradigm to investigate the relationship of maternal interaction on infants’ emotion regulation responses. Seventy infant-mother dyads were seen at 4 months and 25 of these same dyads were re-evaluated at 9 months. Maternal interactions were coded for attention seeking and contingent responding. Emotional regulation was described by infant stress reaction and overall positive affect. Results indicated that at both 4 and 9 months mothers who used more contingent responding interactions had infants who showed more positive affect. In contrast, mothers who used more attention seeking play had infants who showed less positive affect after the Still Face Paradigm. Patterns of stress reaction were reversed, as mothers who used more attention seeking play had infants with less negative affect. Implications for intervention and emotional regulation patterns over time are discussed.

Social stress regulation in 4-month-old infants: Contribution of maternal social engagement and infants' 5-HTTLPR genotype

“…Several previous FFSF studies have investigated early social stress regulation during infancy, with a primary focus on the role of maternal engagement and behavior in moderating individual differences in infants' reactivity to and recovery from social stress [11,12]. For instance, mothers' social engagement and attention to their infants have been found to be associated with lower levels of negative emotionality in infants both when they are exposed to the maternal still-face [10] and during the Reunion episode [4,12].…”

Influence of Dyadic Matching of Affect on Infant Self-Regulation

“…Affective behavioural matching is a dyadic measure of interactive coordination referring to parent and infant being in the same affective state at the same time and seems to indicate the quality of dyadic interaction [35,36]. Regarding coordination in mother-infant interaction in general, research suggests that moderate rather than high or low levels of dyadic matching are related to more optimal outcomes, such as attachment security [for an overview, see [13,29].…”

“Mãe Acha que Bebê Sente Tudo, né?”: Concepções Maternas sobre Habilidades Socioemocionais e Comunicativas Infantis

“…Participaram do estudo 20 mães de bebês de 4 meses e 20 mães de bebês de 9 meses. Foram escolhidas as idades de 4 e 9 meses porque, de acordo com a literatura (Lowe et al, 2012;Tomasello, 2003), é em torno dos 9 meses que emerge no bebê a habilidade de comunicação intencional. No que se refere à idade dos 4 meses, estudos (Feldman & Reznick, 1996;Tomasello, 2003) …”

“…Este dado está relacionado à questão anterior sobre a habilidade dos bebês de perceberem as emoções maternas e demonstra que aos 9 meses essa habilidade está mais consolidada. Sobre esse aspecto, Lowe et al (2012) mostram que os estilos maternos responsivos estão associados a comportamentos positivos do bebê. Entretanto, em experimentos realizados em laboratório, bebês cujas mães demonstram mais insegurança e traços de ansiedade apresentam comportamentos mais negativos e alterações de humor.…”