Contextual influences on concordance between maternal report and laboratory observation of toddler fear.

Abstract

Emotion and temperament researchers have faced an enduring issue of how to best measure children’s tendencies to express specific emotions. Inconsistencies between laboratory observation and parental report have made it challenging for researchers to determine the utility of these different forms of measurement. The current study examined the effect of laboratory episode characteristics (i.e., threat-level of the episode, maternal involvement) on concordance between maternal report and laboratory observation of toddler fear. The sample included 111 mother-toddler dyads who participated in a laboratory assessment when toddlers were approximately 24-months-old. Toddler fear was assessed both via maternal report and observation from a number of laboratory episodes that varied in their level of threat and whether mothers were free or constrained in their involvement in the task. Results indicated that maternal report related to the observed fear composites for low-threat, but not high-threat episodes. On the other hand, maternal involvement in the laboratory episodes did not moderate the relation between maternal report and laboratory observation of fear. These results suggest that the threat-level of laboratory episodes designed to elicit fear, but not maternal involvement in these episodes, may be important to take into consideration when assessing their relation to maternal report of fear and fearful temperament.

The significance of early temperamental reactivity for children’s social competence with peers: A meta-analytic review and comparison with the role of early attachment.

“…Specifically, temperament scholars have debated the tradeoffs in leveraging questionnaires versus observations of temperament, noting that reports might be prone to reporter bias (Kagan, 2011) and that observational assessments might not capture the full range of children’s temperament across contexts (Gartstein et al, 2012; Putnam et al, 2008). Moreover, questionnaires and observations of temperament tend to be only weakly to modestly correlated (e.g., Kiel & Hummel, 2017; Olino et al, 2013; Seifer et al, 1994). Our results indicate that once overlapping informants and items were removed, reports and observations of temperamental characteristics produce comparable estimates of the developmental significance of early temperamental reactivity for children’s social competence with peers.…”

Parents’ early representations of their children moderate socialization processes: Evidence from two studies

“…Addressing a closely related question, temperament researchers have examined factors that influence concordance between reported and observed child characteristics. In general, concordance tends to be small to moderate (e.g., Kiel & Hummel, 2017, for review). Gartstein and Marmion (2008) and Leerkes and Crockenberg (2003) reported that parents’ (mostly mothers’) depression negatively affected the concordance between their ratings of infants’ fear or distress to novelty and the infants’ fear observed in the laboratory.…”

Maternal anxiety and toddler inhibited temperament predict maternal socialization of worry

“…When included in the same model, the shared variance between shyness and dysregulated fear dropped out, leaving only what was unique to each measure. Dysregulated fear is observed in low‐threat situations (Buss, 2011), which have previously yielded toddler behaviors more highly (albeit imperfectly) related to the maternal report of inhibited temperament than toddler behaviors observed in higher‐threat situations (Kiel & Hummel, 2017). Variance in the maternal report of shyness unique from dysregulated fear may reflect mothers’ perceptions of toddler inhibition in other, qualitatively different contexts (e.g., with a new babysitter).…”