Ann M. Frodi

Child abusers' responses to infant smiles and cries.

14 child abusers and a matched group of non-abusers watched videotapes of crying and smiling infants. Their psychophysiological responses were monitored throughout the session. After each videotape, the subjects described their emotional responses on a mood adjective checklist. The crying infant elicited heart-rate acceleration and increases in skin conductance and diastolic blood pressure from both groups, although the abusers experienced greater increases in heart rate and reported more aversion and less sympathy. Like other parents tested in this paradigm, the nonabusers responded to the smiling infant with no change in or declines in physiological activation. The abusers, however, responded to the smile and cry stimuli similarly.

Correlates of mastery-related behavior: a short-term longitudinal study of infants in their second year.

The present study examined correlates of mastery-related behavior across the infants second year of life. Maternal control style was quantified on a control to support-of-autonomy continuum, infant-mother attachment was assessed in the Strange Situation, and mastery-related behavior was observed in a toy play session at 12 and 20 months. Infants whose mothers were supportive of their autonomy displayed greater task-oriented persistence and competence during play than did infants of more controlling mothers; securely attached and avoidant infants tended to exhibit greater persistence at tasks than anxious-ambivalent babies, and ambivalent babies were the most negative in affect.

Security of mother- and father-infant attachment and its relation to sociability with strangers in traditional and nontraditional Swedish families*

Fifty-one firstborn infants were seen in the Strange Situation at 11 and 13 months—once with their mothers and once with their fathers. Seventeen of the infants come from families in which the fathers were extensively involved in child care and had spent at least a month (X=2.8 months) as primary caretakers. The infants sociability toward unfamiliar adult strangers was also assessed prior to each Strange Situation assessment. There was no significant relationship between the security of infant-mother and infant-father attachment. Infants who were securely-attached to their fathers—especially those with B1 and B2 relationships—were most sociable with strangers, but the security of infant-mother attachment was unrelated to sociability. The significant associations with the security of the father-infant attachments did not vary depending on the fathers relative involvement in childcare, nor the sex of the stranger. Infants were more sociable with female than with male strangers.

Infants' Affective Responses in the Strange Situation: Effects of Prematurity and of Quality of Attachment.

20 full-term and 20 preterm infants and their mothers were videotaped in the Strange Situation, and the security of their attachment relationships was later determined. Each episode was subsequently divided into consecutive 15-sec intervals, during each of which ratings of facial expressions were performed. From these ratings several summary dimensions of affect were derived (e.g., affective peak and range during all episodes, latency and rise time for onset of distress during separation episodes, and recovery time during reunions). Term and preterm infants did not differ from one another in either the security of attachment or their affective expression and regulation. When groups were combined, patterns of affective expression were significantly different for infants classified as insecure-avoidant, insecure-ambivalent, and securely attached, as well as for group B1 + B2 infants compared to group B3 + B4 babies. The findings indicated that attachment-related affect may reflect an affect continuum that underlies certain mother- and stranger-directed behaviors in the Strange Situation, but that not all aspects of reunion behavior can be predicted by prior separation reactions.

Sex Differences in Responsiveness to Infants: A Developmental Study of Psychophysiological and Behavioral Responses.

Sex differences in responsiveness to infants were investigated by comparing physiological responses to infants with overt behavioral reactions. The former were assumed to be more biologically determined than the latter whereas overt behavioral responsiveness was presumed to be more affected by societal norms than were psychophysiological indices. The subjects were boys and girls in middle childhood and early adolescence. Psychophysiological indices showed that children, like parents, responded differentially to infant smiles and cries. As predicted, there were no sex differences on psychophysiological measures of responsiveness to babies. When permitted to interact with a baby, however, girls interacted more and ignored less than boys did. The results suggest that sex differences in overt responsiveness to babies are attributable to societal pressures rather than innate factors. Sex differences appear to wax and wane depending on the salience of sex stereotypy in differing developmental phases.

Maternal control style and the mastery motivation of one‐year‐olds

Forty-one mothers and their 12-month-old infants participated in a study of the effects of maternal control style on infant mastery motivation. Three scales were designed to assess maternal control style during a mother-infant play session. Mastery motivation was assessed in an experimenter-administered structured toy play procedure. Three components, persistence, competence, and affect, comprised the measure of mastery motivation. Mothers also completed questionnaires on child-rearing attitudes, infant temperament, and control style. Results showed that maternal attitudes and behavior were correlated with infant mastery motivation. More specifically: autonomy-oriented control behavior, sensitive care and knowledge of child-rearing were positively related to infant mastery motivation. The results provide converging evidence regarding the multiple aspects of maternal behavior which affect infant motivation.

Abused, neglected, and nonmaltreated preschoolers' ability to discriminate emotions in others: The effects of IQ

Sixty children between the ages of 3 and 5 participated in this study of childrens ability to discriminate emotions in others. Twelve children were identified as neglected, and eight were identified as abused. Two additional groups of nonmaltreated children included one comparable on IQ and one with significantly higher intelligence. All children were given three tests: The Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, the Borke Interpersonal Awareness Test and the Rothenberg Social Sensitivity Test. The results showed that normal children with the higher IQ were significantly better able to identify and discriminate other peoples emotions from picture stories than were the other groups of children, who were not different from one another on any of the measures. Furthermore, when IQ was covaried in the ANOVAS, all group-differences disappeared. It was suggested that previous studies demonstrating inferior performance on measures of social cognition by maltreated children may have been due to the failure to control for IQ.

Effects of Paternal Involvement on Infant Preferences for Mothers and Fathers.

45 Swedish infants were observed at home interacting with their mothers and fathers when they were 8 and 16 months old. 15 of the fathers had spent at least 1 month (X=2.8 months) as primary caretakers. Analyses revealed that degree of paternal involvement had no effect on preferences displayed on measures of attachment and affiliative behaviors. At both ages, infants showed clear preferences for their mothers over their fathers, which contrasts with the lack of preference evident in previous studies of American infants. It is suggested that the failure to replicate earlier findings is attributable to the fact that Swedish fathers are not distinguished by an involvement in play and so are less affectively salient to their infants.

When Empathy Fails

In recent years, there has been a growing research interest in the various qualities of the infant cry. In some investigations, the acoustic features of the cry have been analyzed (e. g., Vuorenkoski, Lind, Wasz-Hockert, & Partanen,1971; Zeskind & Lester,1978), whereas in others, the effects of the cries on the listener have been examined (e. g., Frodi, Lamb, Leavitt, & Donovan, 1978; Frodi & Lamb, 1980b; Lounsbury, 1978). This chapter will focus on the latter. Within this perspective, the infant cry is seen as a proximity-eliciting and proximity-maintaining signal, which is functional virtually from the time of birth.

Characteristics of Maternal and Paternal Behavior in Traditional and Nontraditional Swedish Families

Forty-five Swedish couples (N = 90) were observed at home interacting with their 16month-old infants. Fifteen of the fathers had been primary caretaker for more than one month (x = 2.8 months). These men were designated Involved whereas their partners were deemed Less Involved. Men who took little or no parental leave were considered Less Involved, and their partners were deemed Involved. Analyses of the parents behavior revealed that mothers were more likely to vocalize, display affection toward, touch, tend to, and hold their infants than fathers were, regardless of relative involvement in caretaking. Involvement in caretaking had no significant effects on parental behavior. However, involved mothers scored highest on all six of the major behavioral measures. The findings suggested that gender differences in parental behavior are much less amenable to social influence than many psychologists believe, although we are not yet able to say whether gender differences in parental style have some biological basis.