Julia M. Braungart-Rieker

Fear and Anger Reactivity Trajectories from 4 to 16 Months: The Roles of Temperament, Regulation, and Maternal Sensitivity.

Two goals guided this study: (a) describe changes in infant fear and anger reactivity from 4 to 16 months and (b) examine the degree to which infant temperament, attentional regulation, and maternal sensitivity predict reactivity trajectories. Participants included 143 mothers and infants (57% male) who visited the laboratory at 4, 8, 12, and 16 months. Infant reactivity, regulation, and maternal sensitivity were assessed from laboratory situations; infant temperament was rated by mothers on the Infant Behavior Questionnaire (Rothbart, 1981). Hierarchical linear modeling indicated that overall, fear and anger reactivity increased with age, but the rate of increase for fear slowed over time. Maternal ratings of temperamental fear and anger each predicted laboratory ratings of fear and anger reactivity, respectively. Moreover, infants who showed less regulation showed greater fear reactivity and steeper increases in anger reactivity over time. Infants whose mothers were more sensitive showed slower increases in fear reactivity. Findings from this study suggest that it is important to consider both intrinsic and extrinsic factors to gain a better understanding of the processes that may be involved in the development of emotional reactivity systems.

Predicting shared parent-child book reading in infancy.

This study examined the degree to which parental contextual factors and infant characteristics predicted whether parents read aloud to their 8-month-old infants. Discriminant function analysis revealed that mothers with higher family incomes and those who reported less parenting stress and fewer general hassles were more likely to read to their infants. Gender and temperament of the infant did not significantly predict whether mothers would engage in shared reading. Furthermore, there was no evidence that mothers who reported reading aloud to their infants display more enriching parenting practices in the laboratory. Paternal contextual factors did not discriminate readers from nonreaders, but infant temperament did. Fathers who read aloud had infants who were less soothable and who displayed longer durations of orienting. The possibility that book reading could serve as 1 mediator of the temperament-cognition relationship is discussed.

Mother- and father-infant attachment : Families in context

This study examined associations among family type (single-earner vs. dual-earner families of sons and daughters), parent sensitivity, marital adjustment, infant emotionality, infant-mother attachment, and infant-father attachment. Participants included 77 families who were observed in the laboratory at 4, 12, and 13 months. Similar to several previous studies, results indicated that boys from dual-earner families were more likely to have insecure attachments with their fathers but not with their mothers. In addition, fathers of sons in dual-earner households were less sensitive at 4 months and reported less affection in their marriages than did fathers in several other groups; sons were more negatively emotional toward mothers whereas infants in dual-earner families were more negatively emotional toward fathers during still-face at 4 months. Finally, family type moderated the effect that maternal sensitivity had on infant-mother attachment and the effect that infant negative emotionality had on infant-father attachment.

Early individual differences in temperamental reactivity and regulation: implications for effortful control in early childhood.

This longitudinal study tested the hypothesis that early temperament is associated with later effortful control. Fear reactivity and object orientation was assessed in a sample of 53 children at 8, 12, and 16 months during a stranger-approach paradigm and at 4.5 or 5.5 years on a battery of effortful control tasks. A latent growth curve analysis was used to model change in reactivity and object orientation across infancy and the prediction of each on later effortful control. Infants who increased in fear reactivity were significantly more likely to show poor performance on effortful control tasks in early childhood. Findings are discussed with respect to the importance of examining early temperamental precursors that contribute to the development of regulation.

Parenting and Temperament as Interacting Agents in Early Language Development

Objective. This study investigated relations among parenting, temperament, and early language, especially parenting as a moderator of the temperament-language association. Design. Measures of temperament, parenting (maternal responsiveness), and language were obtained from a sample of 102 predominantly European American, middle-class mother - infant dyads who were studied when the infants were 12 and 16 months of age. Results. The interaction between infant distress to novelty and maternal responsiveness at 12 months was related to 16-month language, such that when infants were low in distress to novelty, more responsive parenting was associated with better language abilities. Moreover, for boys only, greater maternal responsiveness was related to better language abilities only when boys displayed less smiling and laughter. Conclusions. The effects of emotionality and parenting on language acquisition depend on the level of the other.

Genetic mediation of longitudinal associations between family environment and childhood behavior problems

Previous studies have reported significant associations between measures of the family environment and behavior problems in children. However, because children in these studies were genetically related to their parents, such links may not be caused solely by environmental influences. The goal of this study was to investigate genetic influence on associations between family environment and problem behavior using an adoption design. Participants in the study included 179 adopted and 176 nonadopted children, as well as their parents and teachers, in the Colorado Adoption Project (CAP; Plomin, DeFries, & Fulker, 1988). Mothers and fathers each completed the Family Environment Scale (FES) when their child was 1, 3, and 5 years of age; the childs problem behavior at age 7 was rated by both mothers and teachers using the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL). Patterns of correlations for nonadopted versus adopted boys indicated that associations between aspects of the familys relationship (conflict, cohesion, expressiveness) and behavior problems in home and school were mediated genetically. For girls, however, these links appeared to be influenced by direct shared environmental effects.

Individual differences in infant information processing:: The role of temperamental and maternal factors

Abstract Although not explicitly evaluated, assumptions have been made that individual differences in infant attention and information processing are of endogenous origin, and probably genetically based. To date, however, little attention has been focused on examining the antecedents and correlates of these processes, and the role that other infant characteristics and the social environment might play. The present study investigated the relationship between infant temperament, maternal behavior, and two commonly employed measures of infant attention (fixation duration and novelty preference) in 44 4-month old infants. Results suggested that both infant temperament and maternal factors were related to infant attentional performance. Most notably, the relative “fit” between maternal and infant characteristics appeared crucial, with highly responsive infants showing better attentional performance if parented by mothers who were less actively involved during toy play interactions.

Infant negative emotionality and attachment: Implications for preschool intelligence

This longitudinal study examined the extent to which dimensions of infant negative temperament in the first year predicted IQ at age 3, and whether these associations depended on the quality of the infant–mother attachment relationship. In a sample of 63 infant–mother dyads, mothers completed Rothbart’s (1981) IBQ when infants were 4 and 12 months, mothers and infants participated in Ainsworth and Wittig’s (1969) Strange Situation at 12 months, and children completed the Stanford-Binet (Thorndike, Hagen, & Sattler, 1986) when they were 36 months of age. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses indicated that 4- or 12-month distress to limitations was not predictive of later IQ, but infants with greater distress to novelty at 4 months had higher IQs at 36 months. Furthermore, greater distress to novelty at 12 months predicted higher IQs but only for infants whose attachment was insecure. Differential implications of temperamental fear versus anger for social influences on cognitive development are discussed.

Four‐Month Attentional Regulation and Its Prediction of Three‐Year Compliance

The extent to which 4-month attentional regulation during an infant-mother still-face situation and 12-month attachment security during the Strange Situation predicted rates of compliance and noncompliance during a cleanup task at 36 months was examined longitudinally in 70 infant-mother dyads. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses indicated that infants who showed more attentional regulation during the still-face situation with mothers later showed a higher rate of committed compliance and a lower rate of situational compliance during cleanup with mothers. Furthermore, lower levels of attentional regulation were later associated with higher rates of assertive behavior, but only for infants in an insecure attachment relationship.

Psychosocial pathways to childhood obesity: A pilot study involving a high risk preschool sample

This pilot study adopts a systems theory perspective to explore associations between parent and child factors and childrens body mass index (BMI). Forty mothers and their preschool-aged children (3-6years) who were eligible for Head Start were recruited. Measures included demographic risk, maternal depression, negative parenting, childrens impulsivity, childrens approach to eating, and BMI. Structural Equation Modeling supported a mediating model such that mothers who reported greater demographic risk and more depressive symptoms showed higher rates of negative parenting. In turn, more negative parenting predicted higher child impulsivity ratings, which were related to higher food approach scores. Finally, children who scored higher in food approach had higher BMIs. Tests of sub-models excluding any of the mediating variables indicated a significantly worse fit to the data in each case. Results have implications for family-wide intervention strategies to help lower the risk for early-onset obesity in high-risk children.