Perceived autonomy during childbirth predicts mothers' parental self-efficacy: A prospective cohort study.

Experience during childbirth is an important predictor of mothers' later well-being. Using the framework of Self-Determination Theory and, we hypothesized that the degree to which women felt autonomy over their choices during childbirth would be reflected in their later confidence as parents, termed Parental Self-Efficacy (PSE). We assessed PSE as well as depressive symptoms before birth (T1, approximately 36 weeks pregnant) and after birth (T2, approximately 5 weeks postpartum).

Basic psychological needs: A framework for understanding childbirth satisfaction.

Women often report being dissatisfied with their childbirth experience, which in turn predicts negative outcomes for themselves and their children. Currently, there is no consensus as to what constitutes a satisfying or positive birth experience. We posit that a useful framework for addressing this question already exists in the form of Basic Psychological Needs Theory, a subtheory of Self-Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan, Can.

Challenging the Link Between Early Childhood Television Exposure and Later Attention Problems: A Multiverse Approach.

In 2004, Christakis and colleagues published findings that he and others used to argue for a link between early childhood television exposure and later attention problems, a claim that continues to be frequently promoted by the popular media. Using the same National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 data set ( = 2,108), we conducted two multiverse analyses to examine whether the finding reported by Christakis and colleagues was robust to different analytic choices. We evaluated 848 models, including logistic regression models, linear regression models, and two forms of propensity-score analysis.

Coincidence or cascade? The temporal relation between locomotor behaviors and the emergence of stranger anxiety.

Two infant milestones, self-propelled locomotion and stranger anxiety, tend to emerge at a similar age in development. An adaptive relation may exist in which the onset of one influences the development of the other in individual children. We examine whether these milestones systematically co-occur and whether one reliably precedes the other.

Playdates: A Win-Win-Win Strategy for Recruitment of Infant Participants.

High-quality developmental science requires a reliable and representative stream of participants, yet recruiting infants at a satisfactory rate can be challenging. We recently developed a new recruitment technique: we invite parents to sign up for no-strings-attached playdates in our laboratory, where we provide toys, free coffee, and students to help entertain the children. We have consistently hosted 2-3 new parents per week via playdates.

Child-directed action promotes 2-year-olds' imitation.

Children are voracious learners and adults are ubiquitous teachers. This project investigated whether the special infant-directed action modifications parents use when teaching their children (called "motionese" by Brand et al., Developmental Science, 2002, Vol.

Infants prefer motionese to adult-directed action.

In two studies, we investigated infants' preference for infant-directed (ID) action or 'motionese' (Brand, Baldwin & Ashburn, 2002) relative to adult-directed (AD) action. In Study 1, full-featured videos were shown to 32 6- to 8-month-olds, who demonstrated a strong preference for ID action. In Study 2, infants at 6-8 months (n= 28) and 11-13 months (n= 24) were shown either standard ID and AD clips, or clips in which demonstrators' faces were blurred to obscure emotional and eye-gaze information.

Acoustic Packaging of Action Sequences by Infants.

This study investigated whether acoustic input, in the form of infant-directed speech, influenced infants' segmenting of action sequences. Thirty-two 7.5- to 11.