Infants’ expectations of caregivers’ comforting behavior: Joint contributions of maternal depressive symptoms and infant negative emotionality

Infants develop expectations about caregivers’ responses through their daily interactions with caregivers that are repeated across time. Using a violation-of-expectation paradigm, we examined infants’ expectations of caregivers’ comforting behavior and the joint contributions of maternal depressive symptoms and infant negative emotionality to the prediction of infants’ expectations. One hundred and thirteen infants (47% female) and their mothers participated in laboratory visits at 6, 9, and/or 12 months of age. Infants watched videos depicting a woman providing comfort or ignoring a crying infant; infants’ time looking at the test events was coded continuously. Mothers reported on their depressive symptoms, and mothers and fathers reported on their infant’s temperament, including negative emotionality. Infants, on average, looked longer at ignore versus comfort events, indicating they were surprised when the caregiver did not respond to the crying infant and expected the caregiver to engage in comforting behavior. Path analyses revealed that higher levels of maternal depressive symptoms were associated with less expectations of comforting behavior, especially for infants with low to moderate negative emotionality, and the magnitude of these associations did not differ across the 6-, 9-, and 12-month time points. The findings indicate that maternal mental health and infant temperament may jointly shape infants’ caregiving expectations. We interpret the findings through the joint lens of attachment theory and statistical learning.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.S.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Human Dvlpmt & Family Studies

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2024

Author dc:creator

• Hu, Kexin

Contributors dc:contributor

• McElwain, Nancy
• Bost, Kelly

• Infant Expectations Of Comforting Behavior
• Infant Negative Emotionality
• Maternal Depressive Symptoms
• Violation-of-expectations Task

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2024 Kexin Hu

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/124224

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F124224