Shared Pleasure in Early Mother-Infant Interaction: Predicting Lower Levels of Emotional and Behavioral Problems in the Child and Protecting Against the Influence of Parental Psychopathology

Abstract

Shared pleasure (SP) was analyzed in fifty-eight 2-month-old infants and their mothers in face-to-face interaction (T1, at 2 months). The association of SP with child's emotional and behavioral outcome at 2 years (T2) was examined. SP as a possible protecting factor in the presence of parental psychopathology also was studied. Mean duration of SP moments (SP-MD) was related to subsequent socioemotional outcome of the child: Infants of dyads with longer SP-MD showed fewer internalizing and externalizing problems 2 years later. In hierarchical linear regressions, SP-MD uniquely and significantly contributed to internalizing problems after adjusting for infant and maternal factors and mother's interactive behavior. SP protected the child against the influence of parental psychopathology. Father's mental health problems during the follow-up increased the child's risk for higher externalizing and internalizing problems, but only among children with short SP-MD at T1. Internalizing symptoms at T2 increased when moving from the category "no mental health problems" to "mental health problems in one parent" and further to "mental health problems in both parents," but this increase was found only among those with short SP-MD at T1. SP in parent-child interaction is an important feature that fosters positive psychological development and moderates the health effects of other risks such as parental psychopathology.

Understanding Bidirectional Mother-Infant Affective Displays across Contexts: Effects of Maternal Maltreatment History and Postpartum Depression and PTSD Symptoms

“…From an evolutionary perspective, warmth in parent-child relationships promotes relational cohesion and motivates behavior through creating an intrinsically rewarding affective system [37] –perhaps suggesting an evolutionary advantage of “contagious” positive affect. In support of this assumption is prior work demonstrating that greater positive affect in infancy is linked with better emotional and behavioral outcomes two years later [6], and that greater positive versus negative infant affect in the SFP is linked with better child regulation [5]. Furthermore, the pattern of greatest affective synchrony following high stress exposure (i.e., the maternal still-face) indicates that more stress may increase reciprocal dyadic coordination wherein mother and infant’s reactions shape the responsiveness of the other.…”

“…Furthermore, parents’ sensitive, contingent reactions to infants’ emotional displays scaffold infants’ emerging self-regulatory abilities to manage their emotions and behaviors [3–5]. As maturation proceeds, the child moves from primary co-regulation through parent-infant affective exchanges to increased self-regulation, and thus the quality of the early parent-infant affective exchanges is often understood to lay a foundation for the quality of subsequent child social, emotional, and psychological self-regulation [4,6]. Given the importance of dyadic affective exchanges in early infancy for healthy child development, a principal aim of this study is to better understand the nature of these affective exchanges between mothers and their infants.…”

“…Tronick et al’s, Mutual Regulation Model [1] proposes that coordinated affective states between a mother and her infant are associated with more positive affect during the interaction, whereas lack of interactive coordination is associated with more negative affect. Consistently, research suggests that mother-infant bidirectional (shared) positive affectivity may be more beneficial for child well-being than a mother’s unidirectional positive affective displays alone [6,16]. …”

Don’t worry, be (moderately) happy: Mothers’ anxiety and positivity during pregnancy independently predict lower mother–infant synchrony

“…Mothers tend to use positive and exaggerated expressions when interacting with their infants (Fernald, 1992) and shared positive affect has been promoted in both popular and scientific discourses as the goal of mother–infant interaction (e.g., Mäntymaa et al, 2015). However, growing evidence, including results of the current study, suggests that high levels of maternal positivity may characterize mother–infant exchanges that are lower in synchrony (Borelli et al, 2012; Feldman et al, 2005; Moore et al, 2013), a quality of dyadic coordination theorized to promote regulatory development by scaffolding infants’ ability to attain and maintain calm, attentive states (Feldman, 2007).…”

“…Developmental research may have added to this pressure by promoting the role of shared mother-infant positivity (e.g., Mäntymaa et al, 2015), which tends to discourage anything but positive emotion expression by mothers. Although maternal positivity is consistently associated with healthy socioemotional (e.g., Eisenberg et al, 2005) and cognitive (e.g., Ryan, Martin, & Brooks-Gunn, 2006) outcomes in children, this may be, in part, because research has tended to use measures of positivity that encompass aspects of warm, sensitive parenting beyond positive affect (Harrist & Waugh, 2002) or has focused on problematic forms of diminished positivity, as in parental depression.…”