Maternal responsiveness and sensitivity reconsidered: Some is more

Abstract

Is it always or necessarily the case that common and important parenting practices are better insofar as they occur more often, or worse because they occur less often? Perhaps, less is more, or some is more. To address this question, we studied mothers’ microcoded contingent responsiveness to their infants (M = 5.4 months, SD = 0.2) in relation to independent global judgments of the same mothers’ parenting sensitivity. In a community sample of 335 European American dyads, videorecorded infant and maternal behaviors were timed microanalytically throughout an extended home observation; separately and independently, global maternal sensitivity was rated macroanalytically. Sequential analysis and spline regression showed that, as maternal contingent responsiveness increased, judged maternal sensitivity increased to significance on the contingency continuum, after which mothers who were even more contingent were judged less sensitive. Just significant levels of maternal responsiveness are deemed optimally sensitive. Implications of these findings for typical and atypical parenting, child development, and intervention science are discussed.

Exploring parental behavior and child interactive engagement: A study on children with a significant cognitive and motor developmental delay

“…Longitudinal analyses, taking into account the child's initial functioning, could provide evidence that "parenting conceivably affects -rather than simply accompanies or follows from-child adjustment" (Collins et al, 2000). Further, the questionnaire and rating scale used in this study capture qualitative aspects of parental behavior but fail to assess specific behavioral linkages (Bornstein & Manian, 2013). In-depth analysis of the observational data would allow us to explore the reciprocal sequences of parental and child behavior within this target group, taking into account the considerable fluctuations in child and parental behavior that are characteristic of this target group.…”

Influence of Dyadic Matching of Affect on Infant Self-Regulation

“…Contradicting theoretical assumptions of attachment theory, which emphasizes the importance of sensitive mother-infant interaction with appropriate, adequate and consistent maternal reactions to infant signals, studies on maternal responsivity [40,41], contingency [42] and interactive synchrony [20] converge on the finding that midrange levels are associated with secure infant attachment, extremely high and low rates with insecure attachment classifications. On the mother's side, midrange vocal matching [43], stimulation [44] and contingency [45] have been associated with higher maternal sensitivity. Such findings underpin that midrange degrees of certain interactive phenomena such as matching, stimulation or contingency are more beneficial for infant development than excessive or reduced degrees thereof [13,29].…”

Interações iniciais entre pais, mães e bebês de 0 a 3 anos: Revisão de literatura

“…São conceitos que guardam relações entre si, quando abordados por diferentes autores (Bornstein & Manian, 2013;Piccinini et al, 2001). Dentre os termos resultantes de sensitividade materna, o mais consistentemente utilizado é responsividade materna, tanto na literatura internacional (Bornstein et al, 2008;Eshel et al,2006;Tamis-LeMonda et al,2014) quanto na nacional .…”

“…Ilustrando a utilização de filmagens e microanáli-ses sobre diferentes índices de responsividade do adulto ao bebê, encontram-se exemplos de estudos internacionais (Beebe et al, 2010;Bornstein & Manian, 2013) e nacionais (Piccinini Marin et al, 2007;Silva et al, 2002). Tais índices conduzem a análises sobre responsividade excessiva (super contingência, relacionada à intrusividade) ou deficiente (baixa contingência, relacionada à pouca afetividade) (Bornstein et al, 2008;Bornstein & Manian, 2013;Troutman, 2015).…”

“…Tais índices conduzem a análises sobre responsividade excessiva (super contingência, relacionada à intrusividade) ou deficiente (baixa contingência, relacionada à pouca afetividade) (Bornstein et al, 2008;Bornstein & Manian, 2013;Troutman, 2015). Um exemplo é o estudo que foi conduzido por Bornstein & Manian (2013), na realidade norte-americana, com 335 bebês de 4,7 a 6,5 meses e suas mães, para avaliar relações entre responsividade materna -por meio de microanálises das interações -e sensibilidade materna -por meio de classificação em uma macroanálise feita por observação das interações filmadas. Seus resultados foram que responsividade e sensibilidade andaram juntas até um ponto, quando, a partir dele, quanto mais responsividade, menor foi a sensibilidade.…”