Responding to distressed infants: Does mothers’ positive versus negative affect matter for infants' behavior and physiology?

How mothers respond to infants’ distress has implications for infants’ development of self-regulation and social competence. In a sample of 35 mothers and their 4- to 8-month-old infants, we induced infant distress using an arm restraint task and compared infants’ observed affect and physiological responses under two conditions, when mothers were instructed to respond with: 1) positive affect and 2) negative affect. Based on theoretical and empirical support, we empirically evaluated two opposing hypotheses. Based on the Mutual Regulation Model and work on affect matching, we predicted that when mothers respond with negative affect versus positive affect, distressed infants’ duration of negative affect would be smaller, negative affect would be less intense, and respiratory sinus arrythmia (RSA) withdrawal would be lower. Based on social referencing theory and research, we expected that when mothers respond with positive affect versus negative affect, distressed infants’ duration of negative affect would be smaller, negative affect would be less intense, and RSA withdrawal would be lower. We found that when mothers responded to their distressed infants with negative affect versus positive affect, infants spent significantly more time in negative affect, their intensity of expressed negative affect was greater, and their RSA withdrawal was greater, suggesting that mothers’ display of mild positive affect when infants are distressed may be helpful for infants. The current findings add to accumulating evidence that mothers’ positive relative to negative affective response to their infants’ distress can produce observable differences in infants’ duration and intensity of negative affect, as well as their physiology. Findings have the potential to inform future research that investigates how mothers can most effectively reduce their infants’ distress and intervention that targets the moment-to-moment behaviors in mother-infant reciprocal interactions.     

The contributions of child–mother attachment,maternal parenting stress,and military status to the prediction of child behavior problems

Studies show that children with a military parent are at heightened risk of the development of behavior problems. However, there is limited work examining how other factors experienced by military families may also influence behavior problems. In the current study, we recruited three types of Canadian families with a preschooler: families with a deployed military member, families with a nondeployed military member, and nonmilitary families. We examined whether the nonmilitary parent's (in all cases the mother) parenting stress and attachment relationship with the child are associated with behavior problems, and whether deployment status further contributes to the prediction. Child–mother dyads participated in an observed attachment assessment, and mothers reported on their stress levels and their child's behavior. Results showed that both child attachment insecurity and parenting stress were associated with elevated levels of internalizing problems; however, only parenting stress was associated with conduct problems. Military deployment predicted higher levels of internalizing and conduct problems beyond the contributions of attachment and stress. Furthermore, having a father in the military (whether deployed or not) also contributed to internalizing problems. These findings shed light on how the military lifestyle impacts early childhood mental health through the complex interplay between various parts of their environment.     

Sexuality and attachment: a passionate relationship or a marriage of convenience?

The ubiquitous and persistent bodily urges of sexuality and their vicissitudes are explored in this paper, focusing on the complex relationship between libidinal desire and the attachment system, especially the latter's affect-regulating function. This complicated interrelationship is highlighted with clinical vignettes. Implications for transference and countertransference are explored in the discussion of affect regulation and its possible sexual entwining. Clinical data is presented to highlight the plasticity of sexuality. Sexuality's protean nature allows for a reassessment of the case of Little Hans, with emphasis on the unique interconnections between sexuality and the vital need for an attachment relationship. Stressing such interconnections raises important questions about the traditional concept of psychosexual stages.     

Goals of male and female college students: Do traditional sex differences still exist?

Importance ratings of reasons for attending college were obtained from male and female undergraduates. Responses were compared for sex differences and were compared to the responses of subjects in the Constantinople (1967) study. The picture of college students that emerged is very different from those of previous studies. Current females did not emphasize career goals less, nor social goals more, than males. Current males were more interested in social aspects of college than were their male predecessors. Male and female concepts of success seemed to differ. To females challenge and accomplishment were most important; to males, complying with parental pressures and economic success were most important.The authors thank Phillip Shaver for his helpful comments on an earlier version of this article.     

Differences in male and female patterns of communication in groups: A methodological artifact?

This study investigated communication patterns in an all-male, all-female, and mixed-sex group. All participants were white and middle class. These groups met for longer periods of time than those in most previous studies that reported differences between men and women in task and maintenance communication patterns. Most previous research investigations were based on groups that met for an hour or less and used unacquainted undergraduates. In this study, no significant differences were found in seven categories of verbal input. While there were no significant differences, the typical pattern reported in the literature was present in the first 30–60 minutes of the groups. After that time period, no consistent patterns were noted, and stereotypic sex differences vanished. This has led the authors to tentatively conclude that the findings of previous research may be due to the limited time period used in most investigations. Men and women did not differ on task and maintenance input, or other categories of verbal input, in groups meeting for 4 1/2 hours or 6 hours.     

The Mehrabian measures of achieving tendency: are separate male and female scales necessary?

The 1969 male and female Mehrabian measures of achieving tendency are among the best-known measures of resultant achievement motivation. This study addressed the question of whether unique male and female items are necessary. Pearson product-moment correlation analyses on 83 male and 184 female undergraduates showed that females' scores on the unique male items correlated positively with their scores on the original female scale, and males' scores on the unique female items correlated positively with their scores on the original male scale. Coefficient alpha reliabilities of the original male and female forms were found to be acceptable. Cluster analyses showed that the Mehrabian items cluster in very similar ways for both males and females.     

Person orientation of male and female high school students: To the Educational disadvantage of males?

Potential differences in the person orientation of male and female high school students that are likely to have a significant influence on their achievement strivings were investigated. A questionnaire, consisting of several indices of person orientation, was administered to 848 grade 10 and 12 students. The data revealed that boys are especially susceptible to anti-intellectual influences from their peers and suggest that the interference of affiliative concerns with achievement behavior, a problem that has received considerable attention in the psychology of women, may also be very relevant to understanding the academic underachievement of males.     

Interventions with video feedback and attachment discussions: Does type of maternal insecurity make a difference?

Parents' insecure representations of attachment are associated with lower parental sensitivity and insecure infant–parent attachment relationships, leading to less optimal conditions for the children's socio-emotional development. Therefore, two types of short-term intervention were implemented in a group of lower middle-class mothers with an insecure representation of attachment as assessed with the Adult Attachment Interview. In one group of mothers, the intervention efforts were directed at promoting maternal sensitivity by means of written information about sensitive parenting and personal video feedback. In the other group, additional discussions about the mothers' early attachment experiences took place, aiming at affecting the mothers' attachment representation. The interventions were implemented during four home visits between the 7th and the 10th month after the baby's birth. Preliminary results on 30 mothers pointed at an intervention effect: Mothers in both intervention groups were more sensitive at 13 months than mothers in a control group, t(28) = −2.3, effect size d = .87, p = .01. Mothers who were classified as insecure dismissing tended to profit most from video feedback, whereas mothers who were classified as insecure preoccupied tended to profit most from video feedback with additional discussions about their childhood attachment experiences, F(1,16) = 1.9, d = .65, p = .19. © 1998 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health     

Gender-atypical personality or sexual behavior: What is disgusting about male homosexuality?

Research consistently finds that homosexuality elicits strong feelings of disgust, but the reasons remain unclear. In the current research, we investigate responses to gay men who violate social norms governing the expression of gender and sexuality. Two hundred forty-three college undergraduates read a vignette about a gay male college student whose personality traits (masculine, feminine, or neutral) and sexual behavior (active vs. passive) varied and reported their affective responses to and cognitive appraisals of the target. The gay target who displayed a feminine personality elicited more disgust and was perceived as lower in gender role conformity than a gay man who displayed a masculine personality. Similarly, the gay target who assumed a passive sex role elicited more disgust and was perceived as lower in gender role conformity than a gay man who assumed an active sex role. The sexual behavior/disgust relationship was mediated by perceived gender role conformity.     

Suicide and the contemporary woman: Are male and female suicide rates converging?

Nationwide statistics on White suicide rates for the years 1960–1978 are examined to assess whether the suicide rates of women are increasing relative to those of men. This is accomplished by calculating for the total population and for several age groupings the sex differential (SD), which is defined as the percentage of suicides which are female after adjustments are made for the sex distribution in the population. The data reveal that the SD narrowed from 1960–1967, held steady from 1968–1972, and then widened slightly from 1973–1978. The most important aspects of these trends are that (a) the narrowing of the SD is due more to declining suicide rates among older (over-40) males than to increasing female suicide rates, and (b) the narrowing of the SD and the small increases in female suicide rates occurred prior to 1970 and thus were earlier than would be expected on the basis of changing sex-role expectations. Post hoc explanations of these patterns refer to methodological factors and to changes in social integration resulting from a variety of sociohistorical factors.     

Marital behavior, parenting behavior, and multiple reports of preschoolers' behavior problems: mediation or moderation?

Associations among positive and conflictual marital behavior and multiple reports of child behavior problems were examined in a community sample of 78 families with 3-year-old children. Maternal and paternal parenting behaviors were tested as potential mediators and moderators. Parents reported on child behavior problems and were observed during parent-child interaction and couple discussion in the presence of the child. Observers and preschool teachers also reported on child behavior problems. Less positive marital engagement and greater conflict were associated with observers' reports, but not with parents' or teachers' reports, of more behavior problems. Associations between marital behavior and child behavior problems were not explained by maternal or paternal behavior; stronger support was found for moderating effects of parenting. Also, positive marital engagement was a slightly better predictor of child behavior problems than was marital conflict.     

Motivational systems of social behavior in male rats and monkeys: Are they homologous?

A comparison is presented between the behaviors of male rats and male stumptail macaques that occur when two unfamiliar males are paired for 10 min. Results which have been presented in detail in separate papers elsewhere are compared and discussed here in terms of the hypothetical organization of motivational systems. The following motivational mechanisms appear to be homologous in the rat and monkey: offense, defense, submission, male sex, self grooming, and allogrooming. Two motivational mechanisms are analogous but not homologous: patrol/marking in the rat and display in the monkey. There is a shift in sensory modality of motivating stimuli from olfaction in the rat to complex visual and auditory stimuli in the monkey. There is also a shift in the modalities of motor patterns from predominant use of the mouth by the rat to use of the hands by the monkey. Both shifts affect most or all motivational systems of social behavior. It is hypothesized that the outer parts of motivational systems, their sensory and motor interfaces with the environment, change more rapidly and incrementally during the course of mammalian evolution than does the inner part, the integrational portion that consists of the motivational mechanisms.     

Sex differences: Differential access to power or sex-role socialization?

Contradictory hypotheses are tested to determine if access to power or sex-role socialization is the crucial factor in determining sex differences. Experimental procedures established a status hierarchy consisting of a superordinate and two subordinates. Males and females in 64 groups were compared in similar subordinate positions. A 2×2 factorial design manipulated two independent variables: subordinate alternatives (equal vs. unequal) and sex of a subordinate advisor. Power affected a distribution of resources and participation in negotiations; sex affected supportive behavior, assessments of influence, and conflict-avoidance motivation. Neither interpersonal power relations nor sex-role socialization adequately explains the sex differences that occurred. The necessity for considering social stratification in research and theory regarding sex differences is discussed.This paper is based on the author's doctoral dissertation submitted to the Department of Sociology, The University of Iowa. The research was funded by a National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Grant (SOC 76-09292) and the Center for Research on Interpersonal Behavior, Department of Sociology, The University of Iowa. The author wishes to thank Michael Lesh for assistance in data collection, Cyndra Norman and John Cordell for coding the discussion data, Jan Wood for secretarial services, and Joan Allman for typing services. The author also thanks Edward J. Lawler, chair of the PhD committee, Carol A. Whitehurst, and other committee members (Carl J. Couch, Stephen G. Wieting, Mark Krain, and Harriet Shaklee) for helpful comments. Blanche G. Hersh, Edward J. Lawler, Carol A. Whitehurst, and an anonymous Sex Roles reviewer also made helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper.     

Does aversive behavior during toddlerhood matter? The effects of difficult temperament on maternal perceptions and behavior

Seventy‐three mothers and their toddlers were observed when the children were 18 and 24 months of age in a series of laboratory procedures designed to assess relations among frustration distress, aggression/venting, and defiance, as indicators of aversive behavior, and their relations to maternal interactive style concurrently and over time. A second goal was to identify the predictors of aversive behavior at 24 months of age. Child aversive behavior as a predictor of increases in maternal negativity over time was also examined. Results indicated that distress, venting, and defiance were related to one another at 18 months of age. For boys, venting at 24 months of age, but not distress or defiance, was associated with greater maternal report of stress and higher incidence of behavior problems at 24 months of age. Venting behavior at 24 months of age was predicted by the interaction of early aversive behavior and low maternal positive guiding behavior. Increases in maternal negative behavior over the six‐month period were predicted by the interaction of earlier negative maternal behavior and child sex, with negative mothers of boys displaying greater increases in negative behavior at the later age. These findings are discussed in terms of the significance of early aversive behavior, in the context of mother–child interaction, for later problematic behavior. ©2002 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.     

Naughty or nice?: equity, gender and behavior

We review the debate over behavior, gender and classroom placement in ability groups for kindergartners. Using vignettes we vary children’s gender in three ways; male, female, or unspecified gender and also describe them as behaving well, average, or misbehaving. Our aim is to probe how much gender and behavior matter with respect to mock reading group placement. The design allows us to see if depicted behavior affects placement when every vignette child is described as possessing the same, average ability. After reading vignettes that vary gender and behavior, but not ability, respondents are directed to assign the portrayed child to a high, medium or low reading group. While depicted behavior strongly affects reading group placement, gender is not a significant predictor.

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Are infant attachment patterns continuously or categorically distributed? A taxometric analysis of strange situation behavior

Contemporary attachment research is based on the assumption that at least three types of infant attachment patterns exist: secure, avoidant, and resistant. It is not known, however, whether individual differences in attachment organization are more consistent with a continuous or a categorical model. The authors addressed this issue by applying P. E. Meehl's (1973, 1992) taxometric techniques for distinguishing latent types (i.e., classes, natural kinds) from latent continua (i.e., dimensions) to Strange Situation data on 1,139 fifteen-month-old children from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care. The results indicate that variation in attachment patterns is largely continuous, not categorical. The discussion focuses on the implications of dimensional models of individual differences for attachment theory and research.     

Processing alternative explanations of behavior: correction or integration?

Three experiments investigated how activation of knowledge about situational forces affects discounting in dispositional inference tasks. Each experiment varied a different knowledge activation factor--salience, accessibility, or specificity of situational information. In addition, all 3 experiments varied situational demands and cognitive load. The results showed that cognitive load eliminated discounting when situational information was low in salience, accessibility, or specificity. However, when situational information was more salient, accessible, or specific, it produced strong discounting effects even when perceivers were under cognitive load. These results are discussed in terms of correction and integration models of dispositional inferences from behavior.     

Examining pathways linking maternal depressive symptoms in infancy to children’s behavior problems: The role of maternal unresponsiveness and negative behaviors

The extent to which maternal depressive symptoms in the first 6 months of life is linked with internalizing and externalizing behaviors in childhood through specific insensitive maternal behaviors (unresponsive and overtly negative behaviors) was examined in a sample of 259 mother-infant dyads. In addition, the extent to which these paths were moderated by infant negative emotionality was also examined. Maternal depressive symptoms were assessed prenatally and when infants were 6 months and 2 years old. Maternal unresponsive and overtly negative behaviors and infant negative emotionality were observed when infants were 6 months old. Mothers reported on infant’s internalizing and externalizing behaviors when infants were 2 years old. Maternal depressive symptoms were directly associated with higher internalizing behaviors; this path was not mediated by maternal behaviors. Depressive symptoms were unrelated to externalizing symptoms. Infant negative emotionality did not moderate these effects, but was related positively to overtly negative maternal behaviors, and temperament interacted with maternal depressive symptoms to predict unresponsive maternal behaviors. Results suggest that early maternal depressive symptoms, infant negative emotionality, and negative maternal behavior pose risk for infants’ later internalizing behaviors, but the proposed moderated mediation model was not supported.     

Whose hand is this? Differential responses of right and left extrastriate body areas to visual images of self and others’ hands

The extrastriate body area (EBA) is involved in perception of human bodies and nonfacial body parts, but its role in representing body identity is not clear. Here, we used on-line high-frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to test the role of EBA in self–other distinction. In Experiments 1 and 2 we compared rTMS of right EBA with stimulation of left ventral premotor cortex (vPM), whereas in Experiment 3 we compared stimulation of right and left EBA. RTMS was applied during a hand laterality task in which self or others’ hand images were presented in first- versus third-person view (Experiments 1 and 3), or while participants had to explicitly recognize their own hands (Experiment 2) presented in first- versus third-person view. Experiment 1 showed that right EBA stimulation selectively speeded judgments on others’ hands, whereas no effect of left vPM stimulation was found. Experiment 2 did not reveal any effect of rTMS. Experiment 3 confirmed faster responses on others’ hands while stimulating right EBA and also showed an advantage when judging self with respect to others’ hands during stimulation of left EBA. These results would demonstrate that EBA responds to morphological features of human body contributing to identity processing.