O. Maurice Haynes

The ontogeny and significance of infants' facial expressions in the first 9 months of life.

Four studies examined aspects of the differential emotions theory (DET) hypothesis of expressive behavior development. In Study 1, facial-expressive movements of 108 2.5- to 9-month-old infants were video recorded in positive and negative mother-infant interactions (conditions). As expected, Max-specified full-face and partial expressions of interest, joy, sadness, and anger were morphologically stable between the 2 ages. Studies 1 and 2 confirmed predicted differential responding to mother sadness and anger expressions and to composite positive and negative conditions. Discrete negative expressions exceeded negative blends, and the amount of both expression types remained stable across ages. Studies 3 and 4 provided varying degrees of support for the social validity of Max-specified infant negative affect expressions. Conclusions include revisions and clarifications of DET.

Infant Cardiac Activity: Developmental Changes and Relations with Attachment.

In this study the stability over the first 13 months of life of measures of infant cardiac activity (heart period and heart-period variability), their relations with each other, and their relations with a continuous-variable index of infant-mother attachment were investigated. The indexes of cardiac activity changed in an orderly way with development (increasing heart-rate variability, decreasing heart rate). There were moderate to high intercorrelations among the cardiac measures, particularly those indexing heart-rate variability (i. e., vagal tone, heart-period variance, and heart-period range)

Abusive and nonabusive mothers' ability to identify general and specific emotion signals of infants

Slides depicting infants in 7 different emotion states were shown to 20 abusive mothers and to 20 matched, nonabusive mothers. The ability of these subjects to identify general emotional affect (positive and negative) and specific emotion signals was tested. Results indicated that abusive mothers were more likely than the comparison group to incorrectly identify specific emotion signals and to label negative affect as positive.

On the form and universality of the contempt expression: A challenge to Ekman and Friesen's claim of discovery

The claim of Ekman and Friesen (1986, “A New Pan- Cultural Facial Expression of Emotion,”Motivation and Emotion, 10, 159–168) that they have found the first empirical support for the existence of a pancultural expression of contempt is challenged on three grounds. First, the claim that no one else had ever attempted to describe an expression unique to contempt in any culture neglects a tradition of research dating back to Darwin. Second, the data presented by Ekman and Friesen were derived using stimuli that are ambiguous representations of their intended expressions. Finally, there are earlier data for the universality of contempt expressions. Ekman and Friesens contempt expression may best be viewed as a learned modification of a prototypical expression evolved from the infrahuman snarl.

Emotional Availability in Mother-Child Dyads: Short-Term Stability and Continuity From Variable-Centered and Person-Centered Perspectives

Emotional availability (EA) is a prominent index of socioemotional adaptation in the parent-child dyad. Can basic psychometric properties of EA be looked at from both variable (scale) and person (cluster) points of view in individuals and in dyads? Is EA stable and continuous over a short period of time? This methodological study shows significant short-term stability and continuity in EA as measured with individual and dyadic Emotional Availability Scales and in clusters of individuals and dyads on EA scores in 52 mothers and their 5-month-olds observed twice at home. This work documents psychometric properties of the emotional availability construct from both variable and person orientations.

Emotionality in Early Infancy Predicts Temperament through the Second Year of Life

Several theories maintain that temperament, personality, or individual differences in behavior are rooted in emotions. The present longitudinal study of sixty-three normal children supported this premise. We found substantial stability from early infancy to age two years for a broad range of emotion-related variables—objectively coded emotion expressions, indexes of cardiac functioning, mothers ratings of temperament. Indexes of these variables provide an early window on the development of stable individual traits. Emotion variables measured in early infancy predicted temperament scores at thirteen, eighteen, and twenty-four months of age.