Sympathetic Activation in Response to Infant Cry: Distress or Promptness to Action?

SYNOPSIS

An increase in sympathetic nervous system (SNS) activity or reactivity in response to stimulation is usually interpreted as an index of heightened maladaptive distress. However, sympathetic activation also underlies promptness to action, so it is not clear whether the same relation could stand for parental responses to infant cry given that a ready and prompt parental response to infant cry favors more adaptive cognitive, social, and emotional development in the infant. Previous studies have not been consistent in the interpretation of sympathetic activation which occurs in response to infant cry. We discuss these two opposing proposed interpretations. A possible alternative interpretation may be that medium activation of the SNS is adaptive because it prepares the organism to act promptly, whereas too low or too high SNS activation is maladaptive because it underlies a lack of empathetic reaction or a highly distressed response.     

Parents’ Perceptions of and Responses to Children’s Emotions: Relations With Meta-Emotion Philosophy and Adult Attachment

Objective. This study investigated how parents’ perceptions of, feelings toward, and anticipated responses to children’s emotions relate to parents’ meta-emotion philosophy and attachment. Design. Parents (112 mothers and 95 fathers) completed an online research study where they viewed photographs of unfamiliar girls and boys (aged 10–14 years) displaying varying intensities of happiness, sadness, fear, anger, and neutral expressions. Parents labeled the emotion, identified the emotion’s intensity, and reported their mirrored emotion and responses. They also completed measures assessing their meta-emotion philosophy and attachment. Results. Meta-emotion philosophy predicted parents’ responses to children’s negative emotion, in that greater emotion-coaching predicted greater accuracy in labeling emotions (boys only), a greater likelihood to interact with children, and for mothers to be further from the mean in either direction in their mirrored emotion. Attachment also predicted parents’ responses to children’s negative emotions: Parents higher in anxiety reported more mirrored emotion, and those higher in avoidance reported less mirrored emotion, lower intensity, and less willingness to interact (boys only). In exploratory models for positive emotion, parents’ meta-emotion philosophy did not predict their responses, but parents higher in attachment avoidance rated girls’ positive emotions as less intense, reported less mirrored emotion, less willingness to interact, and less supportive responses, and those higher in anxiety showed the opposite pattern. Conclusion. Despite methodological limitations, results offer new evidence that parents’ ratings on a standardized emotion perception task as well as their anticipated responses toward children’s emotion displays are predicted by individual differences in their attachment and meta-emotion philosophy.     

No Such Thing as a Baby: Responses to Infant Cry Paradigms Are Primarily Influenced by Parents’ Experiences and Behavior

SYNOPSIS

This article builds on our previous work demonstrating that, when exposed to work–family conflict, parents with high levels of attachment anxiety exhibit greater work–family guilt and less tolerance of infant distress. We respond to commentaries suggesting that the theoretical model could be enhanced by better accounting for innate infant differences and parent psychopathology, arguing that it is possible that parents’ experiences of work–family conflict and attachment anxiety precede the development of psychopathology and may influence the development of infant temperament and behavior. We further explore clinical implications of our findings and identify key suggestions for future work, with an emphasis on the roles of parental experiences of childhood maltreatment and insensitive caregiving.     

Mothers’ Goals Influence Their Responses to Children’s Performance: An Experimental Study in the United States and Hong Kong

This research examined the role of mothers’ self-worth and self-improvement goals in their responses to children’s performance in the United States (80% European American) and Hong Kong (100% Chinese). Mothers (N = 330) were induced to prioritize self-worth or self-improvement among children (M_age = 10.24 years; 48% girls) . Mothers induced to prioritize self-worth (vs. self-improvement) used more success-oriented responses in both regions (ds = 0.53 and 0.35). Mothers induced to prioritize self-improvement (vs. self-worth) used more failure-oriented responses only in the United States (d = 0.29). Mothers’ success-oriented responses predicted more positive beliefs and affect in a cognitive task among children (βs = .10–.18). Taken together, the findings support the importance of parents’ goals in the socialization process.