Context matters: Maternal and paternal sensitivity to infants in four settings.

Branger, Marjolein C.E.; Emmen, Rosanneke A. G.; Woudstra, Mi-lan J.; Alink, Lenneke R. A.; Mesman, Judi

doi:10.1037/fam0000562

Cited by 19 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…Interestingly, the rather distinct patterns of results for fathers and mothers in this study contrasts with the broadly similar results for mothers and fathers in other analyses involving the same study sample. These include the finding that mothers and fathers provide conceptually equivalent ratings of their own symptoms of depression and anxiety ( 7 ) and do not, on average, differ in mean levels of caregiving sensitivity at 4-months ( 44 ). Other analyses from this study sample have also revealed striking between-parent similarities in: (a) the interplay between difficult birth experiences and postnatal wellbeing ( 7 ); and (b) associations between prenatal symptoms of anxiety and depression and infant adjustment at 24-months ( 4 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Furthermore, in keeping with a general propensity to overlook fathers, Humphreys et al ( 3 ) only included mothers in their study. In an exceptional study involving mothers and fathers, Branger et al ( 44 ) found no effect of parent gender on mean levels of caregiving sensitivity observed in routine settings (e.g., lap-play) with 4-month-old infants. However, this study did not explore links between caregiving and either parental wellbeing, couple relationship satisfaction or self-focus.…”

Section: Does Self-focus Mediate the Impact Of Perinatal Wellbeing Onmentioning

confidence: 98%

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Two's Company, Three's a Crowd? Maternal and Paternal Talk About Their Infant Differs in Associations With Wellbeing, Couple Relationship Quality, and Caregiving Sensitivity

et al. 2020

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Problems of depression and anxiety are common in early parenthood and adversely affect parenting quality (1). Rumination is closely linked to poor wellbeing (2), suggesting that self-focus may be one mediator of the association between wellbeing and caregiving [e.g., (3)]. Framed within an international study of first-time mothers and fathers (4), the current study included 396 British mothers and fathers (in 198 heterosexual cohabiting couple relationships) of first-born 4-month-old infants. Parents reported on their symptoms of depression, anxiety and satisfaction in their couple relationship. Five-minute speech samples were transcribed and coded for parents' pronoun use (i.e., “I” and either infant- or partner-inclusive use of “We”), whilst observations in the Still-Face paradigm were coded for parental sensitivity to infants' cues. Our first goal was to test whether new parents' self-focus was associated with wellbeing and couple relationship quality. We also examined whether (i) self-focus mediated the expected association between wellbeing and caregiving sensitivity and (ii) couple relationship quality moderated the expected association between self-focus and caregiver sensitivity. Finally, we compared results for mothers and fathers. Our results illustrate gender-specific associations. First, although mean levels of self-focus and partner-inclusive talk were similar for mothers and fathers, infant-inclusive use of the “we” pronoun was higher in mothers than fathers. Second, self-focus was unrelated to either mothers' or fathers' wellbeing, but was associated with fathers' report of reduced couple relationship quality. In addition, poor perinatal wellbeing was associated with reduced partner-inclusive talk for fathers, but with reduced use of infant-inclusive talk for mothers. Third, mediation models suggest that reduced infant-inclusive talk underpins the association between poor wellbeing and reduced sensitivity in mothers, but not fathers. Fourth, in the context of good couple relationship quality, mothers' elevated partner-inclusive talk was associated with reduced caregiving sensitivity. These findings are discussed in terms of their implications for interventions to support new mothers and fathers, who may benefit from distinct strategies to foster attention to their developing infant.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Does Self-focus Mediate the Impact Of Perinatal Wellbeing Onmentioning

confidence: 98%

Two's Company, Three's a Crowd? Maternal and Paternal Talk About Their Infant Differs in Associations With Wellbeing, Couple Relationship Quality, and Caregiving Sensitivity

et al. 2020

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“…Despite some interesting findings, our study is not without limitations. First, we used static facial expressions instead of dynamic ones (Garrido et al, 2017), which would have been closer to natural parental contexts of caregiving, enhancing the mothers' sensitivity to children facial expressions (Branger et al, 2019). Further, facial expressions presented in the tasks were of unknown children.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recognizing children's emotions in child abuse and neglect

Camilo

Garrido

Calheiros

2020

Aggressive Behavior

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Past research has suggested that parents' ability to recognize their children's emotions is associated with an enhanced quality of parent–child interactions and appropriateness of parental caregiving behavior. Although this association has also been examined in abusive and neglectful parents, the results are mixed and do not adequately address child neglect. Based on the Social Information Processing model of child abuse and neglect, we examined the association between mothers' ability to recognize children's emotions and self‐ and professionals‐reported child abuse and neglect. The ability to recognize children's emotions was assessed with an implicit valence classification task and an emotion labeling task. A convenience sample of 166 mothers (78 with at least one child referred to Child Protection Services) completed the tasks. Child abuse and neglect were measured with self‐report and professionals‐report instruments. The moderating role of mothers' intellectual functioning and socioeconomic status were also examined. Results revealed that abusive mothers performed more poorly on the negative emotions recognition task, while neglectful mothers demonstrated a lower overall ability in recognizing children's emotions. When classifying the valence of emotions, mothers who obtained higher scores on child neglect presented a higher positivity bias particularly when their scores in measures of intellectual functioning were low. There was no moderation effect for socioeconomic status. Moreover, the results for child abuse were mainly observed with self‐report measures, while for child neglect, they predominantly emerged with professionals‐report. Our findings highlight the important contribution of the social information processing model in the context of child maltreatment, with implications for prevention and intervention addressed.

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“…In the first semester of life, there are agerelated transformations in the way infants regulate their feelings and express their interests to their companions (Trevarthen and Aitken, 2003). In the same period, relevant studies comparing emotional engagement in playful interactions of infants with their mother and father did not find significant differences in parental sensitivity and synchrony, but they showed variations in emotional matching and attunement (Braungart-Rieker et al, 1998;Feldman, 2003;Kokkinaki and Vasdekis, 2015;Branger et al, 2019).…”

Section: Hypotheses and Importance Of This Studymentioning

confidence: 93%

“…Several studies have compared emotional engagement in playful interactions of infants with their mother and father in the first semester of life. Some researchers did not find significant differences in parental attempts to direct infant's attention, sensitivity and synchrony (Landerholm and Scriven, 1981;Braungart-Rieker et al, 1998;Feldman, 2003;Branger et al, 2019). Others described variations between mothers and fathers in playful behavior, responsiveness, emotional matching, and attunement (Yogman, 1981;Belsky et al, 1984;Forbes et al, 2004;Kokkinaki and Vasdekis, 2015).…”

Section: Previous Studies Comparing Emotional Engagement and Speech Amentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond the Words: Comparing Interpersonal Engagement Between Maternal and Paternal Infant-Directed Speech Acts

Kokkinaki

Vasdekis

2020

Front. Psychol.

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The present study investigates the way infants express their emotions in relation to parental feelings between maternal and paternal questions and direct requests. We therefore compared interpersonal engagement accompanying parental questions and direct requests between infant–mother and infant–father interactions. We video-recorded spontaneous communication between 11 infant–mother and 11 infant–father dyads—from the 2nd to the 6th month—in their home. The main results of this study are summarized as follows: (a) there are similarities in the way preverbal infants use their affections in spontaneous interactions with their mothers and fathers to express signs of sensitivity in sharing knowledge through questions and direct requests; and (b) the developmental trajectories of face-to-face emotional coordination in the course of parental questions descend in a similar way for both parents across the age range of this study. Regarding the developmental trajectories of emotional non-coordination, there is evidence of a linear trend in terms of age difference between the parents’ gender with fathers showing the steeper slope. The results are discussed in relation to the theory of intersubjectivity.

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Context matters: Maternal and paternal sensitivity to infants in four settings.

Cited by 19 publications

References 19 publications

Two's Company, Three's a Crowd? Maternal and Paternal Talk About Their Infant Differs in Associations With Wellbeing, Couple Relationship Quality, and Caregiving Sensitivity

Two's Company, Three's a Crowd? Maternal and Paternal Talk About Their Infant Differs in Associations With Wellbeing, Couple Relationship Quality, and Caregiving Sensitivity

Recognizing children's emotions in child abuse and neglect

Beyond the Words: Comparing Interpersonal Engagement Between Maternal and Paternal Infant-Directed Speech Acts

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