Emotional resilience in early childhood: developmental antecedents and relations to behavior problems.
To test whether the development of emotional resilience is a function of sensitive caregiving and child negative affect, we tested the joint contributions of 7-month maternal sensitivity and infant negative affect to the prediction of 33-month emotional resilience across the first 3 years of life. The aims of this study were to examine whether maternal sensitivity and infant negative affect predict long-term emotional resilience and whether this was associated with preschool behavior problems. Using a sample of 181 mother-infant dyads, we found that (a) maternal sensitivity at 7 months, but not infant negative affect, longitudinally predicted emotional resilience during preschool and (b) emotional resilience was negatively associated with anxiety/depression in preschool.
Conway
Anne M
AM
University of Pittsburg, Western Psychiatric, Detre Hall/Room E718, Pittsbrug, PA 15213, USA. conwayam@upmc.edu
McDonough
Susan C
SC
D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D002653:Child Behavior Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D002657:Child Development; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004644:Emotions; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D009035:Mothers / Q000523:psychology*