Affect expression in mother-infant interaction and subsequent attachment development.

Study results diverge considerably in respect of the range of emotions expressed and control of negative affect by mothers in subsequently securely and insecurely attached dyads. The present study thus analyzes whether attachment security can be predicted by preceding maternal style of affect expression and control. Participants were 89 healthy firstborn infants and their primary caregivers.

[Comparing assessment methods of infant emotionality].

Objectives: The concept of infant emotionality (temperament) is frequently used in the fields of developmental psychopathology, developmental psychology, and child and adolescent psychiatry. However, a valid assessment of the construct has to deal with some difficulties. Parent reports and behaviour observations of the interaction between caregiver and infant may be biased by parental characteristics, while laboratory assessment procedures often have not been sufficiently validated.

[Mother-infant interaction and adrenocortical reactivity in infancy].

The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between maternal reactivity/sensitivity when interacting with her child and the adrenocortical reactivity of the child in a distressing situation. Based on former results reported in the literature a negative relationship was hypothesized. 20 mother-child-dyads were examined when babies were four and 23 dyads when babies were eight months old.

Predicting the development of infant emotionality from maternal characteristics.

Few studies have examined the associations between environmental conditions and developing infant emotionality or the differential susceptibility to those conditions. The present longitudinal study aims to make a contribution to close that gap. We analyzed whether positive emotionality, negative emotionality/irritability, and withdrawal/fear at the end of the first year of life are predictable from preceding caregiver's depression/anxiety, social support, and sensitivity in the interaction with the infant while controlling for antecedent states of emotionality.