从母亲的敏感性到学步儿的依恋安全性：内部工作模式的桥梁作用

采用视觉习惯化实验程序、陌生情境技术及母亲行为Q分类方法对41名14个月的学步儿及其母亲进行了学步儿内部工作模式、学步儿在陌生情境中的依恋类型以及母亲在母婴互动中的敏感性的评估。结果发现：(1)不安全型的学步儿预期看护者对他们痛苦的信号是无回应的。(2)以自身为中心的母亲的学步儿预期看护者是无回应的。(3)潜类别分析的结果发现母亲敏感性影响学步儿依恋行为的2种关系模式：类别1, 以孩子为中心的母亲的学步儿更容易形成看护者是有回应的预期, 持这种预期的学步儿在陌生情境程序中表现出安全依恋行为; 类别2, 以自身为中心的母亲养育出的学步儿更容易对看护者形成无回应的预期, 并在陌生情境中表现出不安全依恋行为。研究表明：内部工作模式在母亲的敏感性和学步儿的依恋安全性之间起着重要的内部机制作用—— 母亲的敏感性行为的累积促进了学步儿内部工作模式关于母亲的预期, 这种预期又进一步引导着学步儿的依恋行为。     

Genetic and caregiving-based contributions to infant attachment: unique associations with distress reactivity and attachment security

In the longitudinal study reported here, we examined genetic and caregiving-based contributions to individual differences in infant attachment classifications. For 154 mother-infant pairs, we rated mothers' responsiveness to their 6-month-old infants during naturalistic interactions and classified infants' attachment organization at 12 and 18 months using the Strange Situation procedure. These infants were later genotyped with respect to the serotonin-transporter-linked polymorphic region (5-HTTLPR). Maternal responsiveness uniquely predicted infants' attachment security. Infants' 5-HTTLPR variation uniquely predicted their subtype of attachment security at 12 months and their subtype of attachment insecurity at 12 and 18 months. The short allele for 5-HTTLPR was associated with attachment classifications characterized by higher emotional distress. These findings suggest that 5-HTTLPR variation contributes to infants' emotional reactivity and that the degree to which caregivers are responsive influences how effectively infants use their caregivers for emotion regulation. Theoretical implications for the study of genetic and caregiving influences are discussed.     

How infant appearance informs: Child care providers' responses to babies varying in appearance of age and attractiveness

Research suggests that an infant's attractiveness influences adult's judgments of its developmental competence, such that less attractive infants are considered to look older than more attractive infants. To assess the effects of knowledge of age on these attractiveness-based attributions, 90 staff members of licensed child care centers judged specific developmental skills and rated the global developmental competence of 6-month-olds, based on the infants' facial appearance. Knowing an infant's actual age modified relations between attractiveness and expectations of maturity. Caregivers who knew the infants' ages estimated that unattractive infants were capable of relatively few specific skills in some areas of development, but they nevertheless rated those infants to be relatively competent in their development. Without information about age, caregivers often rated less attractive infants to be lower in competence, although they judged these babies to be older, with a larger number of specific skills. Training implications for improving caregivers' judgments are discussed.     

Interventions in early infancy

Infants of high-risk pregnancies and deliveries may need early intervention to facilitate attachment both to and from their caregivers. Three early interventions are described: (1) giving high-risk pregnant women video feedback during prenatal ultrasound, which reduced maternal anxiety, obstetric complications, and fetal activity and improved neonatal outcome (increased weight gain, better performance on the Brazelton, and decreased irritability); (2) providing preterm neonates nonnutritive sucking opportunities to reduce stress during heelsticks and gavage feedings; and (3) providing preterm neonates and preterm cocaine-exposed neonates massage therapy, which facilitated weight gain and better performance on the Brazelton scale. Following improved neonatal behavior, infants would be expected to have better interactions with their caregivers.     

Mothers' insightfulness regarding their infants' internal experience: relations with maternal sensitivity and infant attachment

This study examined the associations among mothers' insightfulness into their infants' internal experience, mothers' sensitivity to their infants' signals, and infants' security of attachment to their mothers. The insightfulness of 129 mothers of 12-month-old infants was assessed by showing mothers 3 videotaped segments of observations of their infants and themselves and interviewing them regarding their infants' and their own thoughts and feelings. Interviews were classified into 1 insightful and 3 noninsightful categories. Mothers' sensitivity was assessed during play sessions at home and at the laboratory, and infant-mother attachment was assessed with the Strange Situation. Mothers classified as positively insightful were rated as more sensitive and were more likely to have securely attached children than were mothers not classified as positively insightful. Insightfulness also accounted for variance in attachment beyond the variance explained by maternal sensitivity. These findings add an important dimension to research on caregiving, suggesting that mothers' seeking of explanations for the motives underlying their infants' behavior is related to both maternal sensitivity and infant attachment.     

Infants' tracking of objects and collections

Recent research suggests that infants' understanding of the physical world is more complex and adult-like than previously believed. One of the most impressive discoveries has been infants' ability to reason about medium-sized, material objects. They are able to individuate objects in a scene, and to enumerate and reason about them. This article reports a series of experiments investigating 8-month-old infants' ability to reason about collections of objects. Experiment 1 shows a sharp contrast between infants' understanding of single objects versus collections. While infants detected the discontinuous ('Magical') disappearance of a single object, they did not detect the Magical Disappearance of a non-cohesive pile of objects. Experiments 2-4 found that infants' difficulty remained even when the distinct identity of each object in the collection was emphasized, but could be overcome if infants (a) first saw the individual objects clearly separated from each other prior to their being placed together in a pile, or (b) had prior experience with the objects making up the collection. Our findings suggest that infants' expectations about object behavior are highly specific regarding the entities they are applied to. They do not automatically apply to any and all portions of matter within the visual field. Both the behavior of an entity, and infants' prior experience play roles in determining whether infants will treat that entity as an object.     

Attachment behavior and its antecedents in offspring born to methadone-maintained women

Videotaped 35 full-term, African American infants exposed in utero to methadone and 46 comparison infants at 12 months participating in a separation-reunion procedure to assess aspects of the infant's attachment relationship to the mother. Mothers in the two groups were comparable on education, age (18-35 years), socioeconomic status, parity, IQ and marital status. Offspring born to methadone-maintained women did not differ from comparison infants in indexes of proximity-seeking at reunion but did display higher scores on indexes of disorganized and avoidant behavior and lower scores on indexes of contact-maintaining behavior. Mothers' perceptions during pregnancy of their future infants' degree of bothersomeness were also related to higher scores on contact-maintaining behavior and lower scores on avoidant behavior. Finally, antecedents of attachment behavior within the opioid group alone were considered. The implications of using dimensional attachment ratings for uncovering more subtle attachment antecedents are discussed.     

Nonmaternal care hours and temperament predict infants’ proximity-seeking behavior and attachment subgroups

Using the NICHD Early Childcare dataset (N = 1281), this study examined whether infant temperament and the amount of time infants spend in nonmaternal care independently predict (1) the likelihood that they seek comfort from their mother when needed and (2) placement in a particular subgroup of infant-mother attachment patterns. Mothers reported the number of hours their infant spent in nonmaternal care each month and their infant's difficulty adapting to novel stimuli at 6 months. The degree to which 15-month-old infants seek comfort from their mother during reunion episodes in the Strange Situation was observed using two behavioral scales (“proximity seeking” and “contact maintaining”). Their average score forms the outcome variable of “proximity-seeking behavior.” The other outcome variables were the subgroups of infant-mother attachment patterns: two subgroups for insecure babies (resistant and avoidant) and four subgroups for secure babies (B1, B2, B3, and B4). Easy adaptability to novel stimuli and long hours of nonmaternal care independently predicted a low level of proximity-seeking behavior. These predictors also increased the likelihood of an insecure infant being classified as avoidant (vs. resistant). A secure infant with these same predictors was most likely to be classified as B1, followed by B2, and then B3, with B4 being the least likely classification. Although previous studies using the NICHD dataset found that hours of nonmaternal care had no main effect on infants’ attachment security (vs. insecurity), this study demonstrates that hours of nonmaternal care predict the subcategories of infant-mother attachment.     

Predicting infant attachment classification from multiple, contemporaneous measures of maternal care

This investigation was designed to test whether stylistic differences in maternal caregiving were associated with both secure and insecure mother-infant attachment classifications in a low-income sample. Multiple measures of maternal interactive behavior and care were collected from a sample of 95 urban, low-income mothers and their 12-month-old infants. Contemporaneous relations to attachment were found only at the broad level of composite scores of caregiving. Scores derived from different measures were aggregated to create composites reflecting three caregiver styles—sensitive, controlling, and unresponsive. Mothers of infants with secure attachment classifications showed greater sensitivity and less controlling behavior than mothers of infants with resistant and avoidant attachments, respectively. Mothers of infants with resistant attachments appeared less responsive to their infants' signals than those of infants with avoidant attachments. Group differences were significant, but modest. These results contribute to the growing body of studies relating parental care with infant attachment patterns and indirectly support the more recent conceptual work on intergenerational transmission of attachment. They also raise methodological issues that need to be considered in future work on caregiving and infant-mother attachment.     

Emotional availability and attachment representations in kibbutz infants and their mothers.

Three components of the attachment transmission model were examined in 48 kibbutz dyads from 2 kibbutz sleeping arrangements: communal and home-based. Concurrent assessments used the Strange Situation procedure (M. D. Ainsworth, M. C. Blehar, E. Waters, & S. Wall, 1978) for infants' attachment relations, the Adult Attachment Interview (C. George, N. Kaplan, & M. Main, 1985) for mothers' attachment representations, and the Emotional Availability Scales (Z. Biringen, J. L. Robinson, & R. N. Emde, 1993) for emotional availability in the dyads. Security of infants' attachment relations as well as autonomy of mothers' attachment representations were associated with higher emotional availability scores. In addition, significantly poorer emotional availability was found in dyads in which infants were insecurely attached and mothers were nonautonomous. Results also indicate that in the ecology of collective sleeping, the associations between the experience of emotional availability in the dyads and infants' and mothers' attachment may have been disrupted.     

Infants' interactions with professional caregivers at 3 and 6 months of age: a longitudinal study

This study longitudinally investigated the quality and stability of 64 infants’ interactions with their professional caregivers in child care centers at 3 and 6 months of age, i.e., across the first 3 months after they entered child care. It was also examined whether the infants’ negative emotionality (as rated by the mother) predicted the quality of the caregiver–infant interaction. The interactive behavior of the professional caregivers (sensitivity, cooperation) and the infants (responsiveness, involvement) was rated from videotapes recorded in three different caregiving situations, lasting about 25 min in total. In contrast to our expectation, the quality of the caregiver–infant interaction did not significantly increase across the first 3 months in child care. As expected, significant rank order stability was found for the quality of the caregivers’ behavior over time. Also in accordance with our expectations, infants with higher negative emotionality scores experienced less sensitivity and cooperation in interactions with their primary professional caregivers at both ages.     

The simulation of emotion experience: On the emotional foundations of theory of mind

An argument is developed that supports a simulationist account about the foundations of infants' and young children's understanding that other people have mental states. This argument relies on evidence that infants come to the world with capacities to send and receive affective cues and to appreciate the emotional states of others – capacities well suited to a social environment initially made up of frequent and extended emotional interactions with their caregivers. The central premise of the argument is that the foundation of infants' understanding of other minds is built upon an early-developing capacity to share others' emotion experiences. The emotion experiences elicited in interactions between caregivers and infants enable the elaboration of this primitive understanding into a more fully developed understanding of psychological subjects. The evidence presented in support of these claims derives from a wide range of studies of the phenomena of emotional contagion, affective communication, and emotion regulation involving infants, young children, and adults.     

依恋对象回应方式对不同依恋类型幼儿支持提供预期修正的影响

依恋对象的敏感性回应是儿童安全依恋发展的重要前因。研究采用改编版依恋预期范式考察实时互动情境中依恋对象确定性和概率性回应对幼儿支持提供预期及预期修正的影响。结果发现：相对不安全型依恋幼儿,初始预期中安全型幼儿更多预期依恋对象会向依恋者提供支持;幼儿能够基于依恋对象的确定性和概率性回应一致地修正对该对象是否提供支持的预期。同时,低水平回应对幼儿预期修正的影响高于高水平回应。研究表明5岁左右幼儿能够基于实时互动中依恋对象的回应信息修正其对该依恋对象的预期,这对理解幼儿依恋表征的发展具有重要启示。     

Sex differences in infant-mother attachment

A sex difference in security of infant attachment was found in a sample of 52 infant-mother dyads. The infants were enrolled in early care and education programs within a predominantly small-town geographic area in the southwest. Security of attachment was assessed using the Strange Situation procedure. Male infants (76%) were significantly more likely to be securely attached than female infants (39%). No other variables related to the infants' early care and education experience or mothers' age, race, marital status, and education were significantly associated with infants' attachment status.     

Secret agents: inferences about hidden causes by 10- and 12-month-old infants

Considerable evidence indicates that preverbal infants expect that only physical contact can cause an inanimate object to move. However, very few studies have investigated infants' expectations about the source of causal power. In three experiments, we found that (a) 10- and 12-month-old infants expect a human hand, and not an inanimate object, to be the primary cause of an inanimate object's motion; (b) infants' expectations can lead them to infer a hidden causal agent without any direct perceptual evidence; and (c) infants do not infer a hidden causal agent if the moving object was previously shown to be capable of self-generated motion.     

Do infants have a sense of fairness?

Two experiments examined infants' expectations about how an experimenter should distribute resources and rewards to other individuals. In Experiment 1, 19-month-olds expected an experimenter to divide two items equally, as opposed to unequally, between two individuals. The infants held no particular expectation when the individuals were replaced with inanimate objects, or when the experimenter simply removed covers in front of the individuals to reveal the items (instead of distributing them). In Experiment 2, 21-month-olds expected an experimenter to give a reward to each of two individuals when both had worked to complete an assigned chore, but not when one of the individuals had done all the work while the other played. The infants held this expectation only when the experimenter could determine through visual inspection who had worked and who had not. Together, these results provide converging evidence that infants in the 2nd year of life already possess context-sensitive expectations relevant to fairness.     

Infants' Physical World

Abstract— Investigations of infants' physical world over the past 20 years have revealed two main findings. First, even very young infants possess expectations about physical events. Second, these expectations undergo significant developments during the first year of life, as infants form event categories, such as occlusion, containment, and covering events, and identify the variables relevant for predicting outcomes in each category. A new account of infants' physical reasoning integrates these findings. Predictions from the account are examined in change-blindness and teaching experiments.     

Event categorization in infancy

Recent research suggests that one of the mechanisms that contribute to infants' acquisition of their physical knowledge is the formation of event categories, such as occlusion and containment. Some of this research compared infants' identification of similar variables in different event categories. Marked developmental lags were found, suggesting that infants acquire event-specific rather than event-general expectations. Other research - on variable priming, perseveration, and object individuation - presented infants with successive events from the same or from different event categories. To understand the world as it unfolds, infants must not only represent each separate event, but also link successive events; this research begins to explore how infants respond to multiple events over time.     

Consistent responses of human mothers to prelinguistic infants: the effect of prelinguistic repertoire size

The salience of infants' vocal and visual cues was examined to evaluate the efficacy of prelinguistic vocalizations to guide adult behavior. A videotape, constructed of brief behavioral episodes from 3 infants with different-sized vocal repertoires, was played to 40 mothers of prelinguistic infants. Playback mothers' responses to the episodes were consistent, demonstrating that preverbal behavior elicits comparable reactions across unfamiliar receivers. The audio and video components of the infants' episodes were then recombined. As the vocal repertoire of the stimulus infants increased, changes in the audio component more often led playback mothers to change responses. Thus, playback mothers used vocalizations as cues as the infants' vocal repertoires became larger.     

Early interactions and the socioemotional development of deaf infants

Studies of the early face-to-face interactions and later attachment behaviours between infants and their caregivers are reviewed, with a particular focus on implications for deaf infants. Since the majority of deaf infants are born to hearing parents, it is to be expected that many parental responses will rely on vocalizations which are inaccessible to the deaf infant. Are other sensory modalities enhanced or used in a compensatory manner by hearing parents so as to make their communication with a deaf infant more effective? Is the deaf infant's heightened need for visual and tactile input adequately met during normal interactions with their caregivers? Does the deaf infant develop the same strategies for signalling distress and coping with separation as does the hearing infant? Although the research literature on this population is sparse, there are beginning to be more reports addressing these questions as early identification becomes increasingly possible. Therefore, this paper will cover issues of the role of eye contact and mutual coordination in early interactions, compensatory parenting behaviours from the perspective of the ‘intuitive parenting’ model, and precursors to later attachment behaviours in deaf infants.