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poster
It has been repeatedly pointed out that imitation plays a significant rolein making, maintaining and promoting person-to-person relationships. It hasbeen also demonstrated that imitating other's action emerge early in lifeand function as a strong elicitor of social interest in the person imitatedthroughout our life. Moreover, both the imitating and being imitated arecharacterized as usually prompting further imitation by the other just liketurn-taking in a conversation which one's speech is usually enriched by thelistener's reply. This aspect of imitation has been stressed in peer interactions based onthe viewpoint that one's imitating the other's particular action makes theaction highlight among an action stream of both children and thus functionto bring it as a common topic for their coordinated action (c.f. Eckerman,1996). In younger child interactions ,especially, with an unfamiliar childin a play setting, the potential for familiar rituals of interaction islimited. Thus, imitation can be the most effective way of achieving formsof coordinated action beyond specific rituals of interaction.However, as the long-established term 'parallel play' (Parten, 1932)describes a state of mutual imitation without achieving coordinatedactions, the possibility that imitation is not necessarily a direct andcrucial elicitor of coordinated actions still remains unexplored. AsEckerman (1996) pointed out, researchers have often fail to rigorouslyexamine processes of occurrence of social interactions because of theirmethodology identifying only stable forms of behavior and theirunderstanding of the process under the context in which those stable formsare observed.In this study, the concept of 'incident' was introduced to overcome thetheoretical impasse. An incident is defined as a sudden emerged episodewhich contains the situation in which an imitating child and the imitatedchild act together on the same object by chance, when the phase of one'simitated action and its of another's are incidentally synchronized. Anincident is also characterized by the precipitately expressed emotion(including both positive and/or negative) of participants in theinteraction. To prove validity of this theoretical proposal, 20 minute freeplay sessions of 8 pairs of 40-month-old same sex children who had nevermet before were observed to find out through what process and how theydevelop their pattern of partner-directed actions leading the occurrence ofcoordinated actions.Results showed that all of 8 pairs of children engaged in mutual imitationalong their ongoing process, but 6 pairs of them achieved coordinated. Inthe 6 pairs who achieved coordinated interactions, 4 pairs were observed toprecipitated themselves into burst of mutual smile/laughter towards thepartner, before they started to act on the same toy together, while, inleft two, paired children started to scramble for the same toy, after then,their attention to the other's actions suddenly increased in adiscontinuous fashion. These results were interpreted as supporting theargument for the importance of the emerging incident and the precipitatelyexpressed emotion towards the other to develop their ways of interaction towell-coordinated ones.
poster
Researchers investigating links between temperament and measures ofcognition and language have speculated that temperament may impact oncognition and language by virtue of its influence on the quality of thechild's interpersonal relationship with others. One common assumption isthat children with difficult temperaments may have a difficult timeengaging others for extended periods of time, which may reduce the numberof opportunities for cognitive and linguistic learning. Dixon and Shore(1997), for example, found temperamental difficulty to be associated withpoorer language development. However, very few studies have investigatedlinks between temperament and relationship quality directly. In one of thefew published studies, Goldsmith and Alansky (1987) found proneness todistress to be moderately but reliably predictive of insecure parent-childattachment relationships. The extent that other dimensions of temperamentmay impact on relationship quality is unknown. One reason for the lack ofresearch in this area may be the relatively few measures of relationshipquality. In the present paper, we examined correlations betweentemperament and relationship quality as defined by an instrument usedwidely outside the field of developmental psychology: the Nursing ChildAssessment Teaching Scales (NCATS; Sumner & Spietz, 1996).Mothers and their babies visited the laboratory at child ages 7 (N 101),10 (N 77), and 13 (N 63) months. Participants were generallyEuropean-American and middle class. Mothers and babies were asked to playtogether with a standard set of lab toys. NCATS scores were derived fromvideotapes of 25 pilot dyads. All NCATS scoring was completed by acertified NCATS instructor/rater. Quality of maternal caregiving wasdetermined by summing four subscales: 1) sensitivity to cues, 2)alleviation of distress, 3) social-emotional growth fostering, and 4)cognitive growth fostering. Quality of child responsiveness was determinedby summing: 1) clarity of cues, and 2) responsiveness to caregivers.Subsequently, mothers completed Infant Behavior Questionnaires (IBQ;Rothbart, 1981), producing six temperament measures at each age: activitylevel, smiling and laughter, fear, distress to limitations, duration oforientation, and soothability. Correlational analyses revealed an interesting pattern ofassociations between child temperament and quality of maternal caregiving(Table 1). Higher quality caregiving tended to occur with children whowere temperamentally less active and who had higher frustration tolerances.Higher quality caregiving also tended to occur among children with shorterattention spans and who were temperamentally less soothable. The 3-monthlagged correlations appeared as strong or stronger than the concurrentcorrelations, though the small pilot sample prohibited testing forsignificant differences. Temperament measures were not correlated withchildren's contributions to the dyadic interchange. Overall, it appears that mothers are trying to maximize the extentthat their children are engaged in dyadic interaction, and that caregivingquality varies as a function of temperamental difficulty. In particular,children who elicited the highest quality of caregiving during free playtended to be the most difficult temperamentally. If quality of caregivingcontributes to cognitive development, then these results help explainprevious counter-intuitive findings in which temperamental difficulty wasassociated with enhanced cognitive functioning (e.g., Smith et al., 1997;Maziade, et al., 1994). Table 1Correlations between IBQ Temperament Measures and NCATS Maternal Caregivingat MonthsTemperament Dimension Caregiving (10 Months) Caregiving (13 Months)Activity Level (7 Months) -.48*Activity Level (10 Months) -.48*Distress to Limitations (7 Months) -.71** -.46*Distress to Limitations (10 Months) -.44*Duration of Orientation (7 Months) -.49*Duration of Orientation (10 Months) -.53*Smiling and Laughter (7 Months) -.38Soothability (7 Months) -.63*Note: *p < .05, **p < .01, all others p < .10.References Dixon, W. E., Jr., & Shore, C. (1997). Temperamental predictors oflinguistic style during multiword acquisition. Infant Behavior andDevelopment, 20, 99-103. Goldsmith, H.H., & Alansky, J.A. (1987). Maternal and infanttemperamental predictors of attachment: A meta-analytic review. Journalof Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 55, 805-816. Maziade, M., Cote, R., Boutin, P., Bernier, H., & Thivierge, J.(1987). Temperament and intellectual development: A longitudinal studyfrom infancy to four years. American Journal of Psychiatry, 144, 144-150. Rothbart, M.K. (1981). Measures of temperament in infancy. ChildDevelopment, 52, 569-578. Smith, P. H., Dixon, W. E., Jr., Jankowski, J. J., Sanscrainte, M.M., Davidson, B. K., & Loboschefski, T. (1997). Longitudinal relationshipsbetween habituation and temperament in infancy. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly,43, 291-304. Sumner, G., & Spietz, A. (1996). NCAST Caregiver/parent-childinteraction teaching manual. Seattle, WA: NCAST Publications, University ofWashington, School of Nursing.
poster
Thomas and Chess's original temperament theory proposed a transactional model of adjustment in which temperament, driven by underlying biology, influences development through its interactions with environmental variables, such as parental caretaking (Thomas & Chess, 1977). The goal of this study was to examine whether maternal self-perceptions of psychological and marital functioning, stress, and observed maternal interactive behavior differed for temperamentally different infants. A second and related question addressed the issue of whether the relation between maternal functioning and maternal behavior varied depending on the temperament of the infant. These questions were addressed using a sample of infants selected on the dimension considered most challenging for caregivers and most likely to lead to externalizing behavior--low frustration tolerance (anger).A sample of 162 six-month-old children was selected on the basis of parents' report of their infants' temperament and a laboratory assessment of temperament. Infants were classified as frustrated if they were both frustrated in the laboratory and were rated by mothers as high on the distress to limits scale on the Infant Behavior Questionnaire (Rothbart, 1981). Infants were classified as non frustrated if they were both low on frustration in the laboratory assessment and low on the IBQ scale of distress to limitations. These two groups of infants were compared on a number of maternal measures. First, several self-report measures of maternal functioning were collected, including the Parenting Stress Index (PSI; Abidin, 1983); the Symptom Checklist 90 - Revised (SCL 90-R, Derogatis, 1986) and the Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS, Spanier, 1976). Marital status and maternal education were also assessed. Maternal behavior during five laboratory tasks was assessed. Dimensions of m!aternal behavior measured in the laboratory included sensitivity, intrusiveness, positive affect, pacing appropriateness, physical affection, and vocal stimulation. Results indicated that mothers of frustrated infants were no more likely to report stress, symptoms of psychopathology, or marital discord than were mothers of non-frustrated infants. They did differ, however, in terms of their behavior with their infants. After controlling for the infants' level of engagement during the tasks, which did not differ as a function of temperament group, mothers of frustrated infants were found to be less physically affectionate (p < .01), less sensitive (p < .10), more intrusive (p < .05), and displayed less positive affect (p < .01), than mothers of non-frustrated infants. Second, correlations between maternal behavior and factors hypothesized to effect maternal behavior were examined separately for each temperament group. In general, maternal behavior was not correlated with psychological functioning or stress for mothers of non frustrated infants. For mothers of frustrated infants, several measures were correlated with maternal behavior. ! In particular, maternal intrusiveness and sensitivity were significantly predicted by mothers' reports of stress, their level of education and their marital status. These results suggest that mothers of frustrated infants may respond to their children in different ways and that their behavior may be more influenced by their psychological state than mothers of non-frustrated infants.
poster
Although some early studies of parent-infant interaction suggestedthat mothers and fathers behave differently with their infants, few contemporary studies have examined such differences. In fact, with fewexceptions (e.g., Braungart-Rieker et al., 1998; Feldman, in press),recent studies have not addressed father-infant interaction. Changes inthe role of fathers in children's socialization and infant experience innon-maternal care raise the question of whether affective differences inmother-infant and father-infant interaction still exist. Additionally, in the study of infant emotional development, questionsexist about infants' tendency to behave similarly or differently across parents. Questions on this topic can follow from questions about parentdifferences. If mothers display more positive affect with infants thanfathers do, for example, it is possible that infants respond by exhibitingmore positive affect with mothers than with fathers. Alternatively, it is also possible that there are differences in infants' affective behaviorwith mothers and fathers that are unrelated to differences in parentbehavior. Finally, it is worth examining whether differences in parentand infant affect change with development. To address issues of mother-father differences in parent and infantbehavior across time, the current study assessed dyadic parent-infant interaction longitudinally. Fifty two-parent, predominantly EuropeanAmerican families with healthy, full-term infants were selected from a large community sample in western Oregon. Participants were assessed in the laboratory during dyadicface-to-face interaction when infants were 3 and 6 months old.The face-to-face interaction was a structured procedure that modified thewidely used still-face paradigm (Tronick et al., 1978) to include apeek-a-boo game. Because face-to-face play is the predominant context for social behavior in early infancy, this procedure allowed the measurementof infant and parent emotion in a valid setting. Parents and infants were filmed with a two-camera arrangement. Videotaped facial expressions of parents and infants were codedindependently on a second-by-second basis using a system based onTronick's monadic phases (Cohn & Tronick, 1987; Tronick, Als, & Brazelton, 1980) and Izard's Affex system (Izard, Dougherty, & Hembree, 1983). Parents' use of physical play was also coded. Parents' affective datawere reduced to the proportion of positive affect and physical playexhibited during unstructured play. Infants' affective data were reducedto the aggregate proportions of positive, neutral, and negative affect acrossnormal interaction, peek-a-boo, and still face. Repeated measures multivariate analyses of variance indicated differences based on parent gender in both parents' and infants' affectivebehavior. Mothers displayed more positive affect with infants, andfathers were more likely to use physical play with their infants. Infants exhibited more positive affect with mothers and more negative affect withfathers. There was cross-age stability in parents' positive affect and infants' negative affect with fathers. In addition, infants exhibited cross-parent stability for positive affect at both ages. Developmental changes included a decrease in parent positive affect and an increase ininfant positive affect from 3 to 6 months. This study contributes to our knowledge of mean differences in parent and infant emotion expression related to parent gender. Futurework could address this phenomenon across development and in other parent-child contexts. References Braungart-Rieker, J., Garwood, M. M., Powers, B. P., & Notaro, P. C.(1998). Infant affect and affect regulation during the still-face paradigm with mothers and fathers: The role of infant characteristics and parental sensitivity. Developmental Psychology, 34, 1428-1437. Cohn, J. F., & Tronick, E. Z. (1987). Mother-infant face-to-faceinteraction: The sequence of dyadic states at 3, 6, and 9 months.Developmental Psychology, 23, 68-77. Feldman, R., in press. Infant-mother and infant-father synchrony: Theco-regulation of positive arousal. Izard, C. E., Dougherty, L. M., & Hembree, E. A. (1983). A system foridentifying affect expression by holistic judgments (Affex). Newark, DE:University of Delaware, Instructional Resources Center. Tronick, E., Als, H., Adamson, L., Wise, S., & Brazelton, T. B. (1978).The infant's response to entrapment between contradictory messages.Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 17, 1-13. Tronick, E. Z., Als, H., & Brazelton, T. B. (1980). Monadic phases: Astructural descriptive analysis of infant-mother face-to-faceinteraction. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 26, 3-24.
poster
Carefully designed studies on young children's reactions to success andfailure suggest that toddlers do not show reactions consistent with shamebefore 24 months and pride before 22 months (Stipek, 1997). These studiesalso show that success feedback, such as praise of mastery, reliablyelicits pride reactions around 22 months before children spontaneouslyunderstand implications of winning/ losing competitive tasks in the thirdyear. In these studies however, feedback of failure was not sociallydelivered. In the current study, we modified competitive tasks used withpreschoolers (Lewis et al., 1992) such that feedback of success and failurewas socially delivered by the tester. In pride trials the tester prompted: 'You won the game, you finishedfirst, you get to have the winner's crown.' In shame trials the testerprompted: 'Oh oh, I finished first, I get to wear the winner's crown. Youdidn't finish.' If the child made an effort to complete task (about 80% ofthe sample did), the tester prompted: 'I see that you finished too but Ifinished first.' First, we examined whether failure feedback wasassociated with behaviors consistent with shame reactions. Second, weexamined mean differences in discrete behaviors such as mastery smiles,frowns and global pride and shame reactions longitudinally from 19 to 28months. Third, we examined rank-order stability and changes in the factorstructure of discrete indicators of pride and shame. Method 60 children from an ongoing longitudinal study of emotional developmentwere assessed at 19, 22, 25 and 28 months. A sample of behaviors were asfollows: mastery smiles, animation, accepting crown as a trophy for prideand facial, bodily sobering, social avoidance for shame. Furthermore, ifchildren displayed at least 2 target indicators contingent with the prompt,and the onset and offset of indicators were temporally well organized, theywere considered to have shown definite expressions of the target emotion. Results The percentage of children showing definite pride reactions increased from29% to 66% and those showing definite shame reactions increased from 46% to82% from 19 to 28 months. Children's pride (p < .01) and shame (p <.10)reactions became more consistent from 19 to 28 months across trials.Relative frequency of mastery smiles, accepting crown in pride, and bodilysobering in shame trials showed significant increases. Other discreteindicators of pride and shame also showed increases but were notsignificant. Average rank-order stability at consecutive time points inpride reactions was .28, p < .05, and in shame reactions .15, ns. Thesecorrelations suggest some continuity in pride but not shame. The factorstructure of discrete displays showed changes from 19 to 28 months forpride but not shame. Findings show that when success and failure feedback is sociallydelivered, toddlers as young as 19 months display behaviors that appear tobe precursors of later emerging autonomous pride and shame reactions.
poster
The effects of parental attention and responsiveness on the development and expression of jealous behavior in 11 infants between the ages of eight and thirty months were investigated. The study employed a three-phase (baseline, conditioning, return-to-baseline) research design. The class of jealousy protests included verbal protests, physical/motoric protests, and imitation of behaviors in which the target infant was excluded from interactions between their mother and either an older sibling or same-age peer infant. Baseline behavior of both infant jealousy and maternal responsiveness were determined in Phase I of the study when infants were excluded from mother-other child social interactions. Phase 2 involved instructing mothers to respond to all infant jealousy protest by having them redirect all of their attention to the infant rather than the other child. During Phase 3, only the infant's non-jealous behaviors were attended to by the mother. The results of this study suggest that contingent maternal attention can significantly increase the expression of jealous behaviors and that removing parental contingencies for jealous behavior can decrease the occurrence of jealousy. These data extend the findings of Roth, Gewirtz, & Markham (in press), whose twin study demonstrated the evocative and reinforcing effects of maternal attention in shaping jealousy, by showing that infant jealousy is not a emotional phenomenon that may be more operative in twin infants than infants who have non-twin siblings and that as early as one year, the infant jealousy can occur outside the context of mother-sibling interactions.