Six-week postpartum maternal self-criticism and dependency and 4-month mother-infant self- and interactive contingencies.
Associations of 6-week postpartum maternal self-criticism and dependency with 4-month mother-infant self- and interactive contingencies during face-to-face play were investigated in 126 dyads. Infant and mother face, gaze, touch, and vocal quality were coded second by second from split-screen videotape. Self- and interactive contingencies were defined as auto- and lagged cross-correlation, respectively, using multilevel time-series models. Statistical significance was defined as p<.05. Regarding self-contingency, (a) more self-critical mothers showed primarily lowered self-contingency, whereas their infants showed both lowered and heightened, and (b) infants of more dependent mothers showed primarily lowered self-contingency, whereas findings were absent in mothers. Regarding interactive contingency, (a) more self-critical mothers showed lowered attention and emotion contingencies but heightened contingent touch coordination with infant touch, and (b) more dependent mothers and their infants showed heightened facial/vocal interactive contingencies. Thus, maternal self-criticism and dependency have different effects on mother-infant communication.
Beebe
Beatrice
B
New York State Psychiatric Institute, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, NY 10032, USA. beebebe@pi.cpmc.colombia.edu
Jaffe
Joseph
J
Buck
Karen
K
Chen
Henian
H
Cohen
Patricia
P
Blatt
Sidney
S
Kaminer
Tammy
T
Feldstein
Stanley
S
Andrews
Howard
H
D003142:Communication; D005145:Face; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008960:Models, Psychological; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D049590:Postpartum Period / Q000523:psychology*; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology*; D012649:Self Concept; D012647:Self-Assessment; D014110:Touch; D014743:Videotape Recording; D014785:Vision, Ocular; D014831:Voice