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INFANT AFFECTIVE RESPONSES IN THE STILL-FACE AT 6 MONTHS PREDICT MATERNAL RATINGS OF 18 MONTH BEHAVIORS

Ginger Moore, Jet&y F. Cohn, and Susan B. Campbell

Department of Psychology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260

The still-face paradigm is used to assess infants’ expectations of mothers’ responsiveness by observing infants’ reactions when mothers become unresponsive. Prior research has found that positive eliciting (looking at mother and smiling) and crying in the still-face predict attachment classification. In other studies, attachment insecurity has been associated with later behavior problems. One interpretation of this work is that behavioral responses in the still-face index the developing attachment system which mediates the emergence of problem behaviors. Another hypothesis is that this behavioral continuity reflects an affective style characteristic of the infant. To explore this hypothesis, we examined longitudinal relations among eliciting and crying in the still-face at 6 months, affective responses in the strange situation at 12 months, and maternal ratings of behavior at 18 months.

Participants were 133 infants of middle-class, primiparous, married, Caucasian mothers (70 depressed and 63 control) recruited from a community sample to study the effects of post-partum depression on infants. In the still-face at 6 months, eliciting and crying were coded dichotomously. These responses were not mutually exclusive. For those infants who became distressed, latency to cry was computed. At 12 months in the strange situation, crying was coded dichotomously in the separation and in the reunion episodes. Attachment was classified dichotomously in two ways: 1) traditional secure/insecure classifications and 2) Belsky-Thompson classifications based on an A-like (Al/A2/Bl/l32) v. C-like (B3/B4/C2/Cl) split. The latter classification reflects an infant’s tendency to minimize or exacerbate negative emotion. At 18 months, mothers rated their children’s behavior problems using the Toddler Behavior Checklist (TBC).

The majority (68%) of infants attempted to elicit mother in the still-face at 6 months. Within the group of infants whose mothers were depressed at study entry(2 mos postpartum), infants whose mothers remained depressed through 6 months were less likely to elicit their mothers than were infants whose mothers were no longer depressed or showed only subclinical symptoms (x2(2)=5.87, p=.O5). In the total sample, eliciting was unrelated to traditional or Belsky-Thompson attachment classifications. By 18 months, infants who did not positively elicit in the still-face, compared with those who did, were rated by their mothers as more oppositional and aggressive (F(l,79)=5.44, EC.05).

Most infants (63%) became distressed in the still-face at 6 months. By 12 months, 36% of infants cried in the separation episodes of the strange situation, whereas 44% cried when reunited with mother. Infants who did not cry in the still-face were unlikely to cry during separation at 12 months (x2(1)=3.92, pc.05). Consistent with emotion regulation views of attachment, infants who did not cry at all in the strange situation were more likely to be A-like than C-like (x*(3)=35.31, p<.OOOl). Latency to cry in the still-face was unrelated to Belsky-Thompson classifications, but was related to traditional classifications such that insecurely attached infants took longer to cry in the still-face than securely attached infants @( 1,63)=4.16, p<. 05). At 18 months, infants who lacked the normative crying response in the still-face were rated as showing fewer immature @(1,79)= 4.71, pC.05) and emotionally labile (F( 1,79)=4.87, pc.05) behaviors than other toddlers. Ratings of 18 month behaviors were unrelated to traditional or Belsky-Thompson attachment classifications.

Results indicate significant stability across time and contexts for infants’ behaviors, independent of attachment to mother, and that infants who did not use a positive social strategy in response to mothers’ unexpected behavior in the still-face showed more externalizing behavior as toddlers.