Infant proneness-to-distress temperament, maternal personality, and mother-infant attachment: associations and goodness of fit.
66 mother-infant pairs were examined when the infants were 9 and 13 months. The purpose of this report was to examine relations between infant proneness-to-distress temperament, maternal personality characteristics, and mother-infant attachment. There were no main-effect relations between infant proneness-to-distress temperament as assessed at 9 months and infant attachment classification at 13 months. This was true whether security of attachment (A and C vs. B) or proposed temperament (A1-B2 vs. B3-C2) groupings of attachment classifications were examined. Infant proneness-to-distress temperament, however, was associated with maternal behavior and personality. Furthermore, security of attachment could be predicted by an interaction between maternal personality and infant proneness-to-distress. The importance of considering goodness-of-fit relations in predicting attachment security is discussed.
Mangelsdorf
S
S
Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 48109.
Gunnar
M
M
Kestenbaum
R
R
Lang
S
S
Andreas
D
D
D000339:Affect; D001143:Arousal; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D008425:Maternal Behavior; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D009769:Object Attachment; D010551:Personality; D010553:Personality Development; D002666:Psychology, Child; D013694:Temperament