Attachment in the making: Mother and father sensitivity and infants’ responses during the Still-Face Paradigm

Abstract

This study examined the extent to which infant and parent response trajectories during the Still-Face-Paradigm (SFP) in early infancy predicted later infant-mother and infant-father attachment. Families (n = 135) participated in the SFP when infants were 3, 5, and 7 months and the Strange Situation when infants were 12 (mothers) and 14 months (fathers). Multilevel models showed that parent sensitivity assessed during the SFP was related to infants’ affective and behavioral response trajectories during the SFP, and that sensitivity and infant response trajectories predicted attachment. Results from the present study support the notion that parent and infant responses in the SFP with mothers and fathers during Bowlby’s Attachment in the Making phase provide insight into the developing parent-child attachment relationship.

Socio-demographic Correlates of Fathers' and Mothers’ Parenting Behaviors

“…Furthermore, due to secondary analyses on an existing data set different measures of social support were only assessed by one item each and a number of relevant factors were not included in the study, like parental and child personality characteristics (Braungart-Rieker et al 2014; Laxman et al 2013) and quality of marital relationships (Schoppe-Sullivan and Mangelsdorf 2013; Simons et al 1990). More research is needed on these and other relevant factors to better understand the differences and similarities between the parenting behaviors of fathers and mothers.…”

Latent profile and cluster analysis of infant temperament: Comparisons across person-centered approaches.

“…The third data set was contributed by the 6 th author and included temperament ratings at 3 ( n = 135), 5 ( n = 127), 7 ( n = 116), and 12 ( n = 116) months of age, as described by Braungart-Rieker et al (2014). This work focused on temperament, parent-child interactions, and attachment.…”

Mother–infant dyadic reparation and individual differences in vagal tone affect 4-month-old infants’ social stress regulation

“…The study of social stress regulation in young infants has been reliably addressed through the face-to-face still-face (FFSF) paradigm (Braungart-Rieker et al, 2014;Mesman, van IJzendoorn, & Bakermans-Kranenburg, 2009;Provenzi, Borgatti, Menozzi, & Montirosso, 2015). It consists of three 2-min-long episodes: mother and infant engaging in normal face-to-face interaction (i.e., Play episode), mother being asked to keep a still ''poker'' face in front of her infant for 2 min (i.e., Still-Face episode), and normal interaction being resumed (i.e., Reunion episode).…”

“…The capacity to adaptively regulate such everyday challenges is a milestone of early socioemotional development (Beeghly et al, 2011;Braungart-Rieker et al, 2014;Gunning et al, 2013). Social stress regulation involves both reactivity to and recovery from environmental challenges (Haley & Stansbury, 2003).…”