Matching Items (3)
Description
The development of self-regulation is believed to play a crucial role in predicting later psychopathology and is believed to begin in early childhood. The early postpartum period is particularly important in laying the groundwork for later self-regulation as infants' dispositional traits interact with caregivers' co-regulatory behaviors to produce the earliest forms of self-regulation. Moreover, although emerging literature suggests that infants' exposure to maternal stress even before birth may be integral in determining children's self-regulatory capacities, the complex pathways that characterize these developmental processes remain unclear. The current study considers the complex, transactional processes in a high-risk, Mexican American sample. Data were collected from 305 Mexican American infants and their mothers during prenatal, 6- and 12-week home interviews. Mother self-reports of stress were obtained prenatally between 34-37 weeks gestation. Mother reports of infant temperamental negativity and surgency were obtained at 6-weeks as were observed global ratings of maternal sensitivity during a structured peek-a-boo task. Microcoded ratings of infants' engagement orienting and self-comforting behaviors were obtained during the 12-week peek-a-boo task. Study findings suggest that self-comforting and orienting behaviors help to modulate infants' experiences of distress, and also that prenatal stress influences infants' engagement in each of those regulatory behaviors, both directly by influence tendencies to engage in orienting behaviors and indirectly by programming higher levels of infant negativity and surgency, both of which may confer risk for later regulatory disadvantage. Advancing our understandings about the nature of these developmental pathways could have significant implications for targets of early intervention in this high-risk population.
ContributorsLin, Betty (Author) / Crnic, Keith A (Thesis advisor) / Lemery-Chalfant, Kathryn S (Committee member) / Mackinnon, David P (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Maternal intrusiveness is an important predictor of child mental health problems. Evidence links high levels of maternal intrusiveness to later infant negativity, and child internalizing problems. However, children also influence the manner in which parents interact with them. For example, infants that show more negative emotionality elicit less positive parenting in their caregivers. Infant affect is also associated with later child internalizing difficulties. Although previous research has demonstrated that maternal intrusiveness is related to infant affect and child internalizing symptomatology, and that infant affect is a predictor of internalizing problems and parenting, no studies have looked at the transactional relations between early maternal intrusiveness and infant affect, and whether these relations in infancy predict later childhood internalizing symptomatology. The present study investigates young children's risk for internalizing problems as a function of the interplay between maternal intrusiveness and infant affect during the early infancy period in a low-income, Mexican-American sample. Participants included 323 Mexican-American women and their infants. Data were collected when the infants were 12, 18, 24, and 52 weeks old. Mothers were asked to interact with their infants in semi-structured tasks, and mother and infant behaviors were coded at 12, 18, and 24 weeks. Maternal intrusiveness was globally rated, and duration of infant negative- and positive affect was recorded. Mother reports of child Internalizing symptomatology were obtained at 52 weeks. Findings suggest that there are transactional relations between early maternal intrusiveness and infant negative affect, while the relations between infant positive affect and maternal intrusiveness are unidirectional, in that infant positivity influences parenting but not vice versa. Further, findings also imply that neither maternal intrusiveness, nor infant affect, influence later toddler internalizing symptomatology. Identifying risk processes in a Mexican-American sample adds to our understanding of emerging infant difficulties in this population, and may have implications for early interventions.
ContributorsRystad, Ida A (Author) / Crnic, Keith A (Thesis advisor) / Enders, Craig (Committee member) / Bradley, Robert (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
The first half-year of infancy represents a salient time in which emotion expression assumes a more psychological character as opposed to a predominantly physiological one. Although previous research has demonstrated the relations between early parenting and later emotional competencies, there has been less of a focus on differentiating positive and negative emotion expression across the early infancy period. Thus, the current study investigates the growth of positive and negative emotion expression across early infancy in a low-income, Mexican-American sample, and examines the development of emotion expression as a function of early maternal emotion socialization and prenatal stress. Participants included 322 mothers and their infants. Data were collected in participants' homes prenatally and when the infants were 12-, 18-, and 24-weeks old. Mothers were asked to interact with their infants in a semi-structured teaching task, and video-taped interactions of mother and infant behaviors were then coded. Data for mothers was collected at the prenatal and 12-week visits and data for infants was collected at the 12-, 18-, and 24-week visits. Prenatal stress was measured via two questionnaires (Daily Hassles Questionnaire and Perceived Stress Scale). Maternal socialization at 12 weeks was represented as a composite of four observational codes from the Coding Interactive Behavior coding system. Infant emotion expression was also globally rated across the 5-minute teaching task. Findings suggest that the normative development of emotion expression across early infancy is complex. Positive emotion expression may increase across the early infancy period whereas negative emotion expression decreases. Further, at 12 weeks, greater maternal emotion socialization relates to more infant positivity and less negativity, in line with current conceptualization of parenting. However, across time, greater early socialization predicted decreased positivity and was unrelated to negative emotion expression. Findings also suggest that prenatal stress does not relate to socialization efforts or to infant emotion expression. A better understanding of the nuanced development of positive and negative emotion development as a function of early parenting may have implications for early intervention and prevention in this high-risk population.
ContributorsRoss, Emily (Author) / Crnic, Keith (Thesis advisor) / Grimm, Kevin (Committee member) / Eisenberg, Nancy (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015