Fathers' and mothers' responses to the faces and cries of normal and premature infants.

Abstract

Sixty-four parents were shown videotapes depicting infants who were, in turn, quiescent, crying, and quiescent. Half of the parents viewed a normal (full term) newborn, while half viewed a premature infant. Sound tracks were dubbed so that half of the normal and half of the premature infants ' 'emitted" the cry of a normal infant, while the other half emitted the cry of a premature infant. Physiological and self-report measures were gathered. Analyses revealed that the cry of the premature infant elicited greater autonomic arousal and was perceived as more aversive than the cry of the normal infant. The effect was especially pronounced when the premature cry was paired with the face of a premature infant. There were few sex differences. Results are discussed with reference to demographic evidence indicating that prematurely born children are "at risk" for child abuse.

Neural and behavioral responses to attractiveness in adult and infant faces

“…These behavioral outcomes would have obvious advantages for infant survival rates among species with high levels parental care, such as humans. Indeed, infant attractiveness or cuteness is linked to positive affective responses (Hildebrandt, 1978;Langlois, Ritter, Casey, & Sawin, 1995;Power, Hildebrandt, & Fitzgerald, 1982;Stephan & Langlois, 1984), motivation to care for the infant (Alley, 1983;Badr & Abdallah, 2001;Glocker et al, 2008;Maier, Holmes, Slaymaker, & Reich, 1984;Volk, Lukjanczuk, & Quinsey, 2005;Volk & Quinsey, 2002;Waller, Volk, & Quinsey, 2004;Weiss, 1994), and reduction in negative affective responses to infants (Frodi, 1978;Langlois et al, 1995). Exposure to cute infants and young animals has also been shown to stimulate increased carefulness or tenderness (Nittono, Fukushima, Yano, & Moriya, 2012;Sherman, Haidt, & Coan, 2009).…”

The effect of power on susceptibility to emotional contagion

“…Child psychologists find that, from the start, both parents and children tend to catch one another's emotions (Frodi et al ., 1978 ;Hoffman, 1987 ;Meltzoff, 1988 ;Reissland, 1988 ;Thompson, 1987) . Psychotherapists contend that they can use their own emotional reactions to gauge what their clients are feeling (Jung, 1968 ;Reik, 1948) .…”

Infant crying, risk status and social support in families of preterm and term infants

“…These characteristics, such as a higher fundamental frequency, (perceived as pitch), have been related to how aversive and sick the cry is perceived to be . Adults also perceive the cries of infants with medical risk factors such as prematurity as different from the cries of low risk infants (Freudenberg et al, 1978;Frodi et al, 1978). Preterm infants have cries which are more difficult to interpret (DeVitto and Goldberg, 1979) than the cries of fullterm infants and this may increase the stress of caring for preterm infants.…”

“…Adult perceivers show differences in perception when exposed to cries of preterm infants (Frodi et al, 1978), fullterm infants with variations in obstetric risk , Down syndrome infants (Freudenberg et al, 1978), infants with a difficult temperament (Boukydis and Burgess, 1982;Lounsbury and Bates, 1982), and infants with colic or excessive crying .…”