Social referencing in infants of mothers with symptoms of depression

Peláez, Martha; Virués‐Ortega, Javier; Field, Tiffany; Amir-Kiaei, Yalda; Schnerch, Gabriel

doi:10.1016/j.infbeh.2013.05.003

Cited by 18 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…In the absence of previous evidence on the interplay between parents’ depression of infants’ sad temperament on infants’ attention allocation and later child outcomes, we can only speculate about the causes and functions of this association. As suggested by Peláez, Virues-Ortega, Field, Amir-Kiaei, and Schnerch ( 2013 ), and by Gewirtz and Peláez-Nogueras ( 1992 ), increased flat affect and decreased availability of depressed parents may limit infants’ access to mothers’ emotional signals in SR situations, and reduce infants’ frequency of using parents’ emotional signals in SR situations. Enhanced attention to others’ emotional expressions in triadic contexts in case of higher maternal depressive symptoms may be an adaptive response that helps infants gather information in SR situations from others when the depressed mother is not available.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 91%

Infants’ Temperament and Mothers’, and Fathers’ Depression Predict Infants’ Attention to Objects Paired with Emotional Faces

Aktar

Mandell

Vente

et al. 2015

J Abnorm Child Psychol

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Between 10 and 14 months, infants gain the ability to learn about unfamiliar stimuli by observing others’ emotional reactions to those stimuli, so called social referencing (SR). Joint processing of emotion and head/gaze direction is essential for SR. This study tested emotion and head/gaze direction effects on infants’ attention via pupillometry in the period following the emergence of SR. Pupil responses of 14-to-17-month-old infants (N = 57) were measured during computerized presentations of unfamiliar objects alone, before-and-after being paired with emotional (happy, sad, fearful vs. neutral) faces gazing towards (vs. away) from objects. Additionally, the associations of infants’ temperament, and parents’ negative affect/depression/anxiety with infants’ pupil responses were explored. Both mothers and fathers of participating infants completed questionnaires about their negative affect, depression and anxiety symptoms and their infants’ negative temperament. Infants allocated more attention (larger pupils) to negative vs. neutral faces when the faces were presented alone, while they allocated less attention to objects paired with emotional vs. neutral faces independent of head/gaze direction. Sad (but not fearful) temperament predicted more attention to emotional faces. Infants’ sad temperament moderated the associations of mothers’ depression (but not anxiety) with infants’ attention to objects. Maternal depression predicted more attention to objects paired with emotional expressions in infants low in sad temperament, while it predicted less attention in infants high in sad temperament. Fathers’ depression (but not anxiety) predicted more attention to objects paired with emotional expressions independent of infants’ temperament. We conclude that infants’ own temperamental dispositions for sadness, and their exposure to mothers’ and fathers’ depressed moods may influence infants’ attention to emotion-object associations in social learning contexts.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 91%

Infants’ Temperament and Mothers’, and Fathers’ Depression Predict Infants’ Attention to Objects Paired with Emotional Faces

Aktar

Mandell

Vente

et al. 2015

J Abnorm Child Psychol

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“…Furthermore, exposure to parental depression seems to be linked to a decrease in infants’ exploring of the novel stimuli in the environment. In a recent discussion, Peláez et al ( 2013 ) suggested that flat affect in depressed parents limits their ability to provide threat/safety signals to their infants in SR situations. Gewirtz and Peláez-Nogueras ( 1992 ) further suggest that as a result of parents’ limited availability in SR situations, infants will be less likely to use mother as a source of information in SR situations.…”

Section: Exposure To Parents’ Facial Expressions and Infants’ Emotionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exposure to Parents’ Negative Emotions as a Developmental Pathway to the Family Aggregation of Depression and Anxiety in the First Year of Life

Aktar

Bögels

2017

Clin Child Fam Psychol Rev

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Depression and anxiety load in families. In the present study, we focus on exposure to parental negative emotions in first postnatal year as a developmental pathway to early parent-to-child transmission of depression and anxiety. We provide an overview of the little research available on the links between infants’ exposure to negative emotion and infants’ emotional development in this developmentally sensitive period, and highlight priorities for future research. To address continuity between normative and maladaptive development, we discuss exposure to parental negative emotions in infants of parents with as well as without depression and/or anxiety diagnoses. We focus on infants’ emotional expressions in everyday parent–infant interactions, and on infants’ attention to negative facial expressions as early indices of emotional development. Available evidence suggests that infants’ emotional expressions echo parents’ expressions and reactions in everyday interactions. In turn, infants exposed more to negative emotions from the parent seem to attend less to negative emotions in others’ facial expressions. The links between exposure to parental negative emotion and development hold similarly in infants of parents with and without depression and/or anxiety diagnoses. Given its potential links to infants’ emotional development, and to later psychological outcomes in children of parents with depression and anxiety, we conclude that early exposure to parental negative emotions is an important developmental mechanism that awaits further research. Longitudinal designs that incorporate the study of early exposure to parents’ negative emotion, socio-emotional development in infancy, and later psychological functioning while considering other genetic and biological vulnerabilities should be prioritized in future research.

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“…Less literature has examined intervention procedures to improve SR in children with ASD. Behavior-analytic procedures, however, are effective in increasing SR in typically developing infants (Pelaez, Virues-Ortega, Field, Amir-Kiaei, & Schnerch, 2013;Pelaez et al, 2012). As with JA and requesting, in the one study that taught SR to children with ASD, children showed variable responding.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Individualizing Intervention to Teach Joint Attention, Requesting, and Social Referencing to Children with Autism

Weisberg

Jones

2018

Behav Analysis Practice

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Social communication skills such as joint attention (JA), requesting, and social referencing (SR) are deficits in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Shifting gaze is a common response across these skills. In many studies, children respond variably to intervention, resulting in modifications to planned intervention procedures. In this study, we attempted to replicate the procedures of Krstovska-Guerrero and Jones (

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Social referencing in infants of mothers with symptoms of depression

Cited by 18 publications

References 23 publications

Infants’ Temperament and Mothers’, and Fathers’ Depression Predict Infants’ Attention to Objects Paired with Emotional Faces

Infants’ Temperament and Mothers’, and Fathers’ Depression Predict Infants’ Attention to Objects Paired with Emotional Faces

Exposure to Parents’ Negative Emotions as a Developmental Pathway to the Family Aggregation of Depression and Anxiety in the First Year of Life

Individualizing Intervention to Teach Joint Attention, Requesting, and Social Referencing to Children with Autism

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