The Relations of Children's Emotion Regulation to Their Vicarious Emotional Responses and Comforting Behaviors

The purpose of the present study was to examine the relations of children's emotional and behavioral regulation (as indexed by heart rate variability and coping styles) to their emotional and prosocial responses to a crying infant. Kindergarten and second-grade children's vicarious emotional responses (e.g., facial reactions and heart rate slope) and comforting behaviors were recorded while children heard a crying infant. The mothers of these children completed a measure designed to assess their children's coping responses when exposed to others in distress. It was found that children who were able to regulate their arousal (as assessed with heart rate variance) and typically responded instrumentally when exposed to others' needy states and conditions were relatively unlikely to become distressed and relatively likely to talk to and comfort the crying infant. Compared to boys, girls were found to be more responsive to the crying infant and were reported to engage in more direct, active coping responses when exposed to others in distress. The results are discussed in relation to research on emotion regulation and coping in interpersonal contexts.     

Embracing the Biological Roots of the Infant’s Cry

SYNOPSIS

Across species of mammals, the cry of a young infant has profound effects on the parent’s brain, physiology, emotions, and behavior. High levels of infant crying can trigger increases in testosterone in men, which is accompanied by less sensitive caregiving. By learning about the biological roots and essential functions of the infant’s cry, parents may be empowered to take steps to manage the stress that is inherently induced by these cries.     

Verbal and Behavioral Responsiveness to the Cries of Atypical Infants

A total of 176 subjects (53 male students, 65 female students, and 58 mothers) were exposed to 1 of 6 types of infant cries coming from an adjacent room while their behavioral and affective responses were observed. The cries were the pain cries of 2 normal newborns, 1 infant with maladie du cri du chat, 1 with Down syndrome, 1 asphyxiated infant with brain damage, and one asphyxiated infant without brain damage. Subsequently the subjects rated the overhead cry on a series of affective, attributional, and perceptual dimensions. The results indicated that the 6 cries differentially affected the subjects' affective, self-reported, and behavioral responses, as well as their tendency to report not hearing the cry. In general, the findings suggested that the highest- pitched cries (those of the asphyxiated infants), in comparison to the lowest-pitched cries (those of the normal and Down infants), elicited less optimal responses from the listeners.     

Acoustic Characteristics of Naturally Occurring Cries of Infants with "Colic"

Although infantile colic has long been defined by a perceived excessive amount of crying, acoustic attributes of the cry sound may also contribute to perceptions that this early social behavior is excessive or problematic. From an original sample of 76 infants (38 infants referred to physicians for problematic crying, or "colic," and 38 pair-matched comparison infants), 48 infants who produced naturally occurring cry bouts both before and after an evening feeding were studied: 11 infants with Wessel's colic, 15 infants with non-Wessel's colic, and 22 comparison infants. Standard and vociferous cry segments were selected from up to 2 min of tape-recorded crying for spectrum analysis. Vociferous cry segments had a longer duration, a higher fundamental frequency, and a greater percentage of dysphonation than did standard segments. No differences between infant groups were found in cries before feeding. After feeding, infants who were problematic criers, independent of Wessel's criteria, showed a greater percentage of dysphonation in the vociferous cry segment than did comparison infants. This finding resulted from a decrease in dysphonation in the cries of comparison infants after feeding and an increase in those of infants with non-Wessel's colic. The dominant frequency also increased after feeding in the vociferous cries of infants with Wessel's colic, resulting in these infants having higher-pitched cries after feeding than infants in the other 2 groups. Results indicate that infants who are perceived to have problematic crying have objectively different acoustic features in their cry sounds that are particularly aversive, and that complaints about excessive crying cannot be accounted for simply on the basis of reporting bias in overly concerned or emotionally labile parents.     

Associations Between First‐Time Expectant Women's Representations of Attachment and Their Physiological Reactivity to Infant Cry

Associations among 53 primiparous women's Adult Attachment Interview classifications (secure–autonomous vs. insecure–dismissing) and physiological and self‐reported responses to infant crying were explored. Heart rate, skin conductance levels, and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) were recorded continuously. In response to the cry, secure–autonomous women demonstrated RSA declines, consistent with approach‐oriented responses. Insecure–dismissing women displayed RSA and electrodermal increases, consistent with behavioral inhibition. Furthermore, insecure–dismissing women rated the cries as more aversive than secure–autonomous women. Nine months postpartum, secure–autonomous women, who prenatally manifested an approach‐oriented response to the unfamiliar cry stimulus, were observed as more sensitive when responding to their own distressed infant, whereas women classified prenatally as insecure–dismissing were observed as less sensitive with their own infants.     

Infant Crying and Adults'' Anticipated Caregiving Responses: Acoustic and Contextual Influences

These studies assessed adults' latencies to signal that they would respond to infant crying as functions of (1) the degree of infant distress they perceived in the cry, and (2) contextual information relevant to caregiving. In the first study (N = 34), listeners waited longer to respond to cries that they had earlier rated as sounding less distressed than when they heard cries of higher distress. Further, those who had been told that the infant needed sleep waited longer to respond than those without this information. This effect of context information, however, was limited to the latencies; in another study (N = 50), listeners' ratings of distress were not affected. Several acoustic features of the cries correlated with distress ratings and with latencies to signal a caregiving response. Taken together, the results suggest that adults' responses to crying are influenced both by acoustic gradations in the cry itself and by the caregiving context. Ratings of degree of distress manifest in the cry, in other words, may be highly predictive of caregiving behavior but not wholly so. Finally, although certain acoustic variations related to greater perceived distress and speed of response, differences were apparent between infants in the magnitude of these variations. The implication that the general process of cry perception may be calibrated, or fine tuned, to the range of acoustic variation provided by individual infants is discussed.     

What Men Do When a Baby Cries: Increasing Testosterone May Lead to Less Nurturant Care but More Environmental Vigilance

SYNOPSIS

Infants’ crying modulates parental behaviors, which in turn, ideally, lead to calming the infant. The mutually beneficial reciprocity between infants’ and parents’ behaviors is conserved across mammalian species. Although some studies highlight similarities in responses to infant cries across gender, other studies report differences in their behaviors and brain activity. Zeifman and colleagues in this Special Issue found that high levels of infant crying can trigger increases in testosterone in men, which is accompanied by less sensitive caregiving. Some interpret males’ lack of sensitive caregiving as neglectful, but these results could be considered as evolutionarily adaptive. Specifically, increases in testosterone levels from intense infant cries could lead to increased vigilance and alertness toward external stimuli, and thus allow males to be better equipped to protect their young.     

Spousal Presence Modulates Salivary α-Amylase Responses to Infant Cry in Mothers With High Attachment Insecurity

SYNOPSIS

Objective: Infant cry, a major stressor for caregivers, is one of the leading triggers of child abuse. The present study examined the effects of spousal support, spousal presence, and the possible moderating effect of attachment insecurity on individuals’ subjective and physiological responses to infant cry. Design: Thirty-one healthy mothers (M age = 36 years) and their spouses participated in an infant crying paradigm, where mothers were tasked to listen to infant cries under three conditions: (1) alone, (2) in the same room as partner, without physical contact, and (3) in the same room as partner, with hand-holding. Attachment was determined using the Experiences in Close Relationship Questionnaire, and physiological response was ascertained from concentration of salivary α-amylase (sAA). After each cry sound, sAA level and subjective responses to infant cry were assessed. Results: Multilevel regression analyses revealed that trait attachment-anxiety moderated the effect of spousal presence on sAA. Specifically, mothers with high attachment-anxiety showed reduced sAA when their spouse was present, which indicates that spousal support is effective for mothers with high attachment-anxiety. Conclusions: Findings from this study translate to promising clinical applications for the management of parenting stress from infant cry.     

The effects of within-group and between-group methodologies in the study of perceptions of infant crying

Recent studies have indicated that various infant cry patterns can be reliably distinguished when directly compared with other infant cry patterns. The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of this within-group method of cry presentation (in which listeners are exposed to 2 types of cry patterns) with the effects of a between-group methodology (in which listeners are exposed to only 1 type of infant cry pattern). 4 groups of adult listeners rated the tape-recorded cries of low- and high-risk infants on 4 Likert-type scale items during experimental phases. In phase 1, subjects were exposed to either the cries of low-risk or high-risk infants but not both. In phase 2, subjects were exposed to both low-risk and high-risk infant cries. In phase 3, subjects were exposed to the cries they heard in phase 1. Whereas all scale items differentiated the low- and high-risk infant cries during the within-group analyses of phase 2, all scale items did not differentiate low- and high-risk infant cries during the between-group phase of the experiment. The specific pattern of results indicate that within-group methods of cry presentation accentuate the perceptual distance among cry types and may actually create many reliable differences that would not be found in between-group comparisons.     

Cognitive Set and Coping Strategy Affect Mothers' Sensitivity to Infant Cries: A Signal Detection Approach

We used Signal Detection methodology to examine how cognitiveset affects mothers' response to an infant cry. We asked whether a cry from a "difficult" versus an "easy" infant would elicit a change in sensitivity or response bias in mother processing of these cries. Thirty-eight mothers of 4- to 6-month-old infants participated in a Signal Detection task in which they were asked whether they could detect differences between a standard cry and 1 to 4 cry variants. Cry variants differed from the standard cry in small, systematic changes in fundamental frequency. The task was conducted in 2 parts; each part constituted a condition wherein mother received a cognitive set manipulation that labeled the identical cry as coming from either a'difficult'or an "easy" infant. An increase in mothers' sensitivity was associated with the "difficult" infant cognitive set. We examined as well how a coping strategy(illusion of control) affected cry signal processing. Mothers who Exhibited high illusory control were least -sensitive in detecting differences between cries. Two information-prcessing, measures response time and heart rate, were also collected and showed that greater sensitivity was associated with more efficient processing of the cry signal.     

Distress Tolerance and Emotion Regulation: Promoting Maternal Well-Being Across the Transition to Parenthood

Objective. This study examined the association between newborns’ daily crying and five measures of new mothers’ emotional states. Design. One hundred seven new mothers responded via a one-time, anonymous, online survey that assessed their stress, well-being, emotion regulation, frustration, and coping skills. Mothers also reported their infant’s daily cry duration. Results. Average daily crying was related to mothers’ emotional experiences, and relations also existed among the five mental health measures. Regression models indicate the strongest predictors of frustration were infant’s average cry duration, maternal well-being, and infant’s health status at enrollment. Conclusion. Mental health professionals can support families through the normative, but often stressful, experience of their infant’s cries. However, a re-evaluation of the clinical criteria for excessive crying is needed, as the results suggest that mothers whose infants cry considerably less than the widely used Wessel’s 3-hour-per-day criterion for excessive crying experience significant negative mental health.     

Maternal self-efficacy and infant attachment: integrating physiology, perceptions, and behavior

48 mothers of 5-month-old infants were asked to estimate their control over the termination of an infant cry in a laboratory-simulated child-care task. Mothers who greatly overestimated their control differed from low or moderate "illusion-of-control" mothers by exhibiting a depression-prone attributional style, a depressed mood state, perceiving the father as participating less in child care, and responding to impending infant cries with heart-rate acceleration characteristic of aversive conditioning. At age 16 months, 40 of the mother-infant pairs participated in the Ainsworth Strange Situation. Insecure infant attachment at 16 months was associated with maternal perception of overcontrol, depressed mood state, and aversive conditioning to the impending cry in the laboratory task at the 5-month period.     

Psychophysiological and perceptual responses to infant cries varying in pitch: comparison of adults with low and high scores on the Child Abuse Potential Inventory.

Based on their scores on the Child Abuse Potential (CAP) Inventory, 30 nonparent adults were classified as either having high CAP scores (n = 15) or low CAP scores (n = 15). Subjects' heart rate and skin conductance were assessed as they listened to audio-taped presentations of four "normal" phonated infant cries and four high-pitched, hyperphonated infant cries. Subjects also rated the cries on several perceptual items. Results showed that both groups of subjects found hyperphonated cries more aversive, distressing, urgent, arousing, and sick than phonated cry sounds. Similarly, all listeners' showed higher skin conductance levels (SCL) in response to hyperphonated than phonated cries. SCL became attenuated over time in response to phonated, but not hyperphonated, cries. Adults in the high-CAP group, showed marginally higher heart rates than low-CAP adults following presentation of all infant cry sounds and responded to phonated cries with marginally higher skin conductance levels than low-CAP adults. The responses of high-CAP nonparent adults are similar to those of parents with histories of physically abusive interactions with their infants.     

Cross-cultural differences in maternal perceptions of cries of low- and high-risk infants

The tape-recorded cries of low- and high-risk newborn infants were rated by 150 inner-city Anglo-American, Black-American, and Cuban-American mothers during the hospital lying-in period following childbirth. Half of each cultural group was primiparous and half was multiparous. The mothers rated the cries along 4 perceptual and 6 caregiving response scale items. Reliable differences were found between low- and high-risk infant cries on all perceptual responses with the effects of culture and parental experience affecting the degree of differences. Generally, Anglo-American mothers found the cries more distressing, urgent, arousing, and sick sounding than Black-American mothers, while Cuban-American mothers showed similarities to both Black- and Anglo-American mothers depending on the scale items. The ratings on the caregiving response scale items paralleled cultural differences found on the perception scale items and previous reports of the mother-infant interaction patterns of other Anglo-, Black-, and Cuban-American samples. The results are discussed as being important in developing nonethnocentric views of the functional significance of the behaviors of the infant at risk, yet as providing evidence of the cross-cultural significance of the cry sound of the infant at risk.     

The past is present: The role of maltreatment history in perceptual,behavioral and autonomic responses to infant emotional signals

In the current study associations between parents’ experiences of childhood maltreatment and their perceptual, behavioral and autonomic responses to infant emotional signals were examined in a sample of 160 parents. Experienced maltreatment (both physical and emotional abuse and neglect) was reported by the participants and, in approximately half of the cases, also by their parents. During a standardized infant vocalization paradigm, participants were asked to squeeze a handgrip dynamometer at maximal and at half strength while listening to infant crying and laughter sounds and to rate their perception of the sounds. In addition, their heart rate (HR), pre-ejection period (PEP), and vagal tone (RSA) were measured as indicators of underlying sympathetic and parasympathetic reactivity. Results indicated that participants did not differ in their perceptions of the infant vocalizations signals according to their maltreatment experiences. However, maltreatment experiences were associated with the modulation of behavioral responses. Experiences of neglect during childhood were related to more handgrip force during infant crying and to less handgrip force during infant laughter. Moreover, a history of neglect was associated with a higher HR and a shorter PEP during the entire infant vocalization paradigm, which may indicate chronic cardiovascular arousal. The findings imply that a history of childhood neglect negatively influences parents’ capacities to regulate their emotions and behavior, which would be problematic when reacting to children’s emotional expressions.     

Crying and infant abuse in rhesus monkeys

This study investigated the relation between crying and infant abuse in group-living rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta). The subjects were 10 abusive mothers with their infants and 10 control mother-infant pairs. Abused infants cried more frequently than controls in the first 12 weeks of life, even when cries immediately following abuse were excluded from the analysis. The coos of 5 abused infants differed from those of 5 controls in several acoustic parameters, whereas their screams and geckers were acoustically similar, when recorded in the same context. Abusive mothers were less likely than control mothers to respond positively to the cries of their infants. Although infant cries may increase the probability of abuse being repeated, infant crying per se does not appear to be a major determinant of abuse.     

A Glimpse into the Minds of Mothers: The Default Mode Network and Responsiveness to Infant Cries

SYNOPSIS

The authors comment on a paper reporting differences between mothers and non-mothers in neural responses to infant cries and other emotive sounds while engaging in self- or goal-oriented tasks. The value of examining deactivation of the default mode network (DMN) as a means of understanding differential attention patterns in both typical and atypical populations is discussed, as is the generalizability of the experimental paradigm to ecologically relevant contexts. The role of an individual’s age, parental status, and experience in shaping responses to infant crying is considered, and future avenues of research are suggested. An argument is made for coupling neuroimaging techniques with behavioral assays to better understand the determinants of maternal behavior.     

Adult Perception of Emotion Intensity in Human Infant Cries: Effects of Infant Age and Cry Acoustics

The relation between adult perception of emotion intensity in the cries of 1- and 6-month-old infants and the acoustic characteristics of the cries was examined. In the first study, adults who were inexperienced in child care rated 40 cries on 3 emotion intensity scales: anger, fear, and distress. The cries of 6-month-olds were rated as being significantly more intense. Different acoustic variables accounted for emotion intensity ratings for the 2 infant ages. Peak amplitude and noisiness of the cry predicted adult judgments of intensity ratings of 1-month-olds' cries; a measure of amplitude ratio (in 2 frequency bands) was the best predictor of intensity ratings of 6-month-olds' cries. In the second study, parents of infants rated the same cries on the same scales. They also rated the older infants' cries as being more intense. The 2 adult groups did not differ on their ratings, and a regression equation derived from one adult group predicted the other adult group's rating of the same infant age better than it predicted its own ratings for the other infant age. Infant age, and its associated acoustic features, seems to be a more important determinant of adults' perception of emotion intensity than are such adult characteristics as gender or infant-care experience.     

Links between empathy,social behavior,and social understanding in early childhood

The purpose of the current investigation was to examine both social behaviors (i.e., aggression, shyness-withdrawal, and prosocial tendencies) and social understanding (i.e., attitudes and responses to such behaviors in hypothetical peers) of empathic and low-empathic children. Participants were 136 children in kindergarten and grade one. Parents completed ratings of child empathy, shyness, aggression, and prosocial tendencies. Children were presented with vignettes depicting prosocial, aggressive, or shy peers, and asked questions concerning their understanding and responses towards these behaviors. Results indicated that as compared to low-empathic peers, more empathic children were reported to exhibit greater prosocial behavior and less aggression and social-withdrawal. In addition, empathic children demonstrated a more sophisticated understanding of shyness and aggression as compared to less empathic peers. These results suggest that empathic children are more socially sensitive, both in terms of their social understanding of others as well as their own social behaviors.     

Antecedents of Maternal Sensitivity During Distressing Tasks: Integrating Attachment,Social Information Processing,and Psychobiological Perspectives

Predictors of maternal sensitivity to infant distress were examined among 259 primiparous mothers. The Adult Attachment Interview, self‐reports of personality and emotional functioning, and measures of physiological, emotional, and cognitive responses to videotapes of crying infants were administered prenatally. Maternal sensitivity was observed during three distress‐eliciting tasks when infants were 6 months old. Coherence of mind was directly associated with higher maternal sensitivity to distress. Mothers' heightened emotional risk was indirectly associated with lower sensitivity via mothers' self‐focused and negative processing of infant cry cues. Likewise, high physiological arousal accompanied by poor physiological regulation in response to infant crying was indirectly associated with lower maternal sensitivity to distress through mothers' self‐focused and negative processing of infant cry cues.