Childless adults with higher secure attachment state have stronger parenting motivation

Regional Brain Responses Are Biased Toward Infant Facial Expressions Compared to Adult Facial Expressions in Nulliparous Women

“…For example, brain areas involved in mind wandering are modulated by sex in response to infant cries [50]. We have previously shown that childless adults with a higher secure attachment state have stronger parenting motivation [24]. Future studies should pay more attention to individual differences in the adult attachment model.…”

“…Interest-In-Infants [23] was assessed with a Chinese version of the questionnaire [24]. On the Interest-In-Infants questionnaire, subjects are presented with the following scenario “If you were at a party and there was a baby in the room that you did not know, what would you most likely do?” Ten different types of interactions are presented (e.g., “ask to hold the baby”, “avoid the baby entirely”).…”

The Effect of Secure Attachment State and Infant Facial Expressions on Childless Adults’ Parental Motivation

“…As discussed in our previous research ( Cheng et al, 2015b ), two problems persist. First, most studies considered attachment style to be relatively stable.…”

“…In light of these considerations, our previous research directly assessed the link between attachment state and parental motivation using Heerey and Gold’s (2007) behavioral paradigm that is thought to correspond to brain systems ( Cheng et al, 2015b ). The results of this study indicated that a secure attachment state in adulthood reliably predicted the three positive components of parental motivation by comparing neutral faces of infants and adults.…”

Research Advancement of Infant’s Face Preference

“…，眼睛处于脸的中间部位 (Brooks & Hochberg, 1960)，大眼 睛 (Sternglanz, Gray, & Murakami, 1977)，大瞳孔 (Hildebrandt & Fitzgerald, 1979)，又短又窄的嘴巴和鼻子 (Hildebrandt & Fitzgerald, 1979)，大而突出的额头 (Alley, 1981)。 婴儿图式特别容易唤起成年个体的反应，让人觉得非常可爱，容易唤起成人个体的照料行为。婴儿 图式可以使人们关注婴儿，对婴儿的需求作出及时的响应，并更愿意花费精力照顾他们 (Brosch, Sander, Pourtois, & Scherer, 2008;Brosch, Sander, & Scherer, 2007) (Power, Hildebrandt, & Fitzgerald, 1982)。由此可见，婴儿 面孔在人类认知加工系统中具有更高的优先等级。 其次，婴儿面孔能有效唤起成人对婴儿的积极情感与态度。婴儿图式越明显的婴儿面孔，其可爱感 越强，越会被评价为更友好、更健康、更具竞争力 (Ritter, Casey, & Langlois, 1991)，人们对其养育意愿也 会更强 (Chin, Wade, & French, 2007;Melanie L Glocker et al, 2009a;Volk & Quinsey, 2002) (Gould, 1980;Lorenz, 1971;Tinbergen, 1951)。 而且， 无论是儿童、 性成熟的青少年还是成人， 都一致地对婴儿面孔表现出偏好 (Berman, Cooper, Mansfield, Shields, & Abplanalp, 1975;Fullard & Reiling, 1976;Sanefuji, Ohgami, & Hashiya, 2007) (Bartels & Zeki, 2004;Nitschke et al, 2004;Noriuchi, Kikuchi, & Senoo, 2008 (Cheng, Zhang, Sun, Jia, & Ta, 2015)。 进一步的研究发现，与同样的成人面孔相比，在观看中性和哭泣的婴儿面孔表情时，安全依恋状态可以 显著地正向预测养育动机；具体来说，成人安全依恋状态得分越高，对婴儿面孔的偏好性喜欢更强烈， 并且更愿意再次看相同的婴儿面孔，而且观看时间更长 (Ding, Zhang, & Cheng, 2016)。 通过以上研究表明， 成人依恋影响其对婴儿面孔的偏好反应， 这些研究结论符合 Bowlby (1969这些研究结论符合 Bowlby ( , 1988 对成人依恋行为系统与养育行为系统间关系的看法：这两个系统在个体实施养育行为的过程中会发生交 互作用。与这一观点相一致的是，目前有大量研究发现不安全型的依恋风格会抑制、干扰或消除养育行 为系统的反应 (Feeney, 2002;Mikulincer, Shaver, Gillath, & Nitzberg, 2005)；其中具体到养育动机上来说， 安全型依恋风格往往与较强的养育动机有关 (Nathanson & Manohar, 2012;Rholes et al, 1997;Rholes et al, 2006)。因此，研究成人依恋与婴儿面孔偏好的关系可能对深入了解养育行为的本质和成人与婴儿的互动…”