The influence of attachment representation on parental perception and interpretation of infant emotions: A multilevel approach

Abstract

The aim of the study was to investigate parental perception and interpretation of infant emotional expression depending on their attachment representation. Forty-six parents' responses to infant pictures depicting positive, neutral, and negative emotions were assessed on the level of affective judgments (valence, arousal), mimic responses (facial muscle activity), and of the eyelid reflex (using the startle paradigm). Results revealed small differences between parents of different attachment representations with respect to their subjective evaluations. However, secure parents, as compared to insecure ones, showed a positive bias in their mimic responses to infant pictures. The modulation of the startle response indicated a negative evaluation of negative infant emotion expressions in dismissing parents, while an augmentation of the startle response to negative infant emotions could not be observed in secure and preoccupied parents. The findings highlight the role of attachment experiences for emotional information processing in parents and its consequences for parental behavior.

Antecedents of Maternal Sensitivity During Distressing Tasks: Integrating Attachment, Social Information Processing, and Psychobiological Perspectives

“…Consistent with this view, prior research has found adult attachment security to be linked with awareness and accurate labeling of infant emotions (Blokland & Goldberg, ; Deoliveira, Moran, & Pederson, ) and more positive and less negative personality attributions about distressed infants (Leerkes & Siepak, ; Zeanah et al., ). Likewise, adult attachment security has been linked with lower reported negative affect and better physiological regulation (Ablow et al., ), less physiological arousal (Groh & Roisman, ), and greater emotion mimicking in response to infant distress stimuli, which may reflect empathy (Spangler, Maier, Geserick, & von Wahlert, ).…”

Differentiating Maternal Sensitivity to Infant Distress and Non-Distress

“…However, there is accumulating evidence that infant distress cues elicit different neurological, physiological, and self-reported responses from adults than infant neutral and positive cues (Groh & Roisman, 2009; Swain et al, 2012). Moreover, there are individual differences in the extent to which adults find distress cues arousing and aversive based on their attachment-related experiences and schema (Groh & Roisman, 2009; Spangler, Maier, Geserick, & von Wahlert, 2010). As such, we believe infant distress activates a unique set of emotion schema which can compromise mothers’ ability to attend to, interpret, and respond effectively to their infant.…”

SER-PD – Polish adaptation of the My Emotions Scale for the assessment of parents’ emotional reactions to child’s crying

“…Referring to Lang's (1995) theory, an infant's crying might simultaneously activate two motivational systems: the appetitive and the aversive. Infant crying as an unpleasant stimulus invokes negative emotions linked with perceived threat or danger, but at the same time, this is a strong indicator of need of support, and thus possesses an essential social function (Spangler, Maier, Geserick, & von Wahlert, 2010). Therefore, studies show individual differences in perceived aversiveness or in differentiability of parental (maternal) reactions to infant crying, ranging from empathy, through anxiety, to aversive responses (Del Vecchio, Walter, & O'Leary, 2009).…”