Interaction between young siblings: Association with the interaction between mother and firstborn child.

Examined the quality of interaction between mother and firstborn (FB) in the first weeks following the birth of a sibling and its association with the quality of interaction between the siblings 14 mo later. Ss were 40 sibling pairs, with the 19 female and 21 male FBs aged between 18 and 43 mo at the sibling birth. Unstructured home observations were used. Results show that in families with FB girls, in which the interaction between mother and FB was characterized by frequent play, maternal attention, and infrequent prohibition, there was little positive interaction between the siblings 14 mo later. The effect was not explained by the interaction between mother and 2nd child. No such pattern of association was found for the families with FB boys. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of early maternal employment on toddlers, mothers, and fathers.

Investigated the effects of early maternal employment on toddler development and mothers' and fathers' parenting styles using a family system orientation. The 75 families with firstborn 20-mo-olds varied in maternal employment status (nonemployed, part-, and full-time). Observations were conducted of qualitative dimensions of parent–child relationships (toddler–mother and toddler–father attachment and child–parent problem-solving behavior), quantitative dimensions of family time allocation, and parental childrearing attitudes. Each mother had been employed outside the home prior to the baby's birth. 24 mothers had not been employed since the birth of their children; 23 mothers were employed part-time. Results indicate that maternal employment was not related to toddler outcomes (security of attachment or problem-solving behavior). It was related to the amount of time mothers spent with their children and to some childrearing attitudes and behaviors of fathers and mothers. Findings highlight the importance of examining direct (mother–child) and indirect (father–child) effects in the study of early maternal employment and the ability of families to adapt to a variety of lifestyles. (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mother role satisfaction, mother–child interaction, and child temperament: A process model.

Using data from the New York Longitudinal Study (begun by A. Thomas and S. Chess in 1956 and continuing through to the present), the present authors tested the hypothesis that the relation between maternal role satisfaction and child adjustment is mediated by the quality of the mother–child relationship. Data were obtained on 51 children from unemployed mother families and 38 children from employed mother families. Beginning in the 1st mo of the child's life, the parents were interviewed periodically (approximately every 3 mo) for the 1st 2 yrs, and every 6 mo until after 5 yrs of age, after which they were interviewed in adolescence and young adulthood. Using the child's temperamental difficulty as an index of adjustment, results of several path analyses indicate that mothers who were dissatisfied with their roles showed more rejection of the child, and, in turn, had more difficult children. Findings illustrate the use of a process model in explaining the relation between maternal role satisfaction and child development. (36 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Paternal stimulation during infancy: Effects upon aggression and open-field performance of mice.

Studied aggression in random-bred albino Tuck TT strain male mice from 1st matings, reared by both parents (n = 13) and from 2nd matings, reared only by the mother (n = 15). Prolonged isolation from weaning induced more aggression in Ss from 1st matings than in Ss from a 2nd mating. In a 2nd experiment, fathers of 40 Ss were removed (a) shortly after mating, (b) at the litters' birth, or (c) at weaning. In offspring isolated from weaning, Ss in condition c were significantly more aggressive than those in a, while those in b showed an intermediate response. These differences did not occur when the period of isolation was broken by 50 days of communal housing before aggression testing, although Ss in c defecated more in the open field. It is suggested that young mice "imprint" toward the same odors of adult males which in later life elicit intermale aggression. (24 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of maternal employment on the child: A review of the research.

Reviews recent studies of the effects of maternal employment on the child. Research has been organized around 5 hypotheses: (a) The working mother provides a different role model than does the nonworking mother. (b) Employment affects the mother's emotional state-sometimes providing satisfactions, sometimes role strain, and sometimes guilt-and this, in turn, influences the mother-child interaction. (c) The different situational demands as well as the emotional state of the working mother affect child-rearing practices. (d) Working mothers provide less adequate supervision. (e) The working mother's absence results in emotional and possibly cognitive deprivation for the child. Accumulated evidence, although sketchy and inadequate, offered some support for the 1st 4 hypotheses. Empirical studies of school-age children yielded no evidence for a theory of deprivation resulting from maternal employment, but adequate data are not yet available on the effects of maternal employment on the infant. (3 p ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Post-partum employment patterns, family-based care arrangements, and the mother–infant relationship at age two.

This longitudinal study examined the relations of postpartum maternal employment profiles with infant–mother attachment security, maternal sensitivity, and concurrent child and maternal characteristics in Canada. Ss were 57 mothers (aged 21–37) and their 23–27 mo-old children. Contrary to expectations, dyads where mothers returned to outside work after 6 mo postpartum showed higher Q-sort scores on attachment security than other dyads, and higher sensitivity scores than dyads in which women were not employed outside the home in the 1st 2 yrs. Post 6-mo returners also reported less child domain parental stress, less avoidant coping, and less child externalizing behavior problems than other mothers. Results emphasize the importance of a process-oriented approach to understanding early relationships in a family context. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Predicting Infant Maltreatment in Low-Income Families: The Interactive Effects of Maternal Attributions and Child Status at Birth.

Maternal attributions and child neonatal status at birth were assessed as predictors of infant maltreatment (harsh parenting and safety neglect). The population included low-income, low-education families who were primarily Hispanic. Child maltreatment during the 1st year of life (N = 73) was predicted by neonatal status (low Apgar scores, preterm status), as moderated by mothers' attributions. The highest levels of maltreatment were shown within dyads that included a mother with low perceived power and an at-risk infant. Partial support was found for maternal depressive symptoms as mediators of harsh parenting among at-risk infants. It is suggested that lack of perceived parental power constrains investment in protective relationships and fosters sensitization to potential threat. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relationship with the mother modulates the response of yearling Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata) to the birth of a sibling.

The authors investigated the changes induced by the birth of a sibling in the relationship of 1-year-old Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata) with their mothers and group companions. After the birth of a sibling, mother-yearling contact, proximity, and grooming decreased dramatically. Yearlings responded to such a reduction in maternal care in either of 2 radically different ways. Yearlings either sought attention from group companions and showed no sign of depression or did not compensate for the mother's reduced availability and became depressed. The modality of response was predicted by the quality of the relationship with the mother before the sibling birth. Yearlings that had spent a larger amount of time in contact with their mothers were less likely to become depressed. Security of the attachment relationship with the mother may be the factor mediating the link between the time in contact and the yearling's response to the birth of a sibling. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Genetic and environmental influences on maternal and sibling interaction in middle childhood: A sibling adoption study.

Genetic and environmental influences on maternal and sibling interactions were examined in 67 mother–child–child triads from nonadoptive families and 57 mother–child–child triads from adoptive families (in which both children were adopted and genetically unrelated). Triads were videotaped in 6 play settings in their homes. In addition, each sibling pair was observed in an unstructured setting in the home, and mothers completed an interview about the sibling relationship. Genetic influence was found for individual differences in sibling interactions (competition and positive and negative behavior) and maternal interactions with siblings (maternal attention and control); shared environmental factors were also important. No evidence was found for mean differences between the adoptive and nonadoptive families that could be due to genetic influence; family constellation factors also were not important. Results are discussed with respect to genetic influences on family interactions and relationships. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cultural and educational variations in maternal responsiveness.

Two separate studies examined the following hypotheses: (1) that maternal responsiveness is affected by cross-cultural differences in conventions of conversational interaction and (2) that maternal responsiveness is affected by intracultural differences in mothers' levels of formal education. The 1st study compared mother–infant interactions among the Gusii of Kenya with those in suburban Boston, Massachusetts. The 2nd study, carried out in the Mexican city of Cuernavaca, examined variations in mother–infant interactions by maternal schooling within a local sample of low-income mothers of similar cultural backgrounds who had attended school from 1 to 9 yrs. The 2 studies together indicate that maternal responsiveness during infancy, particularly in the verbal mode, is influenced by the mother's cultural background and school attendance (i.e., by factors that reflect her history of participation in institutionalized systems of communication and education). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Determinants of the adolescent's ongoing thought following simulated parental confrontations.

Hypothesized that (1) the level of stress due to the process of interpersonal behavior determines the amount of subsequent repetitive thought about that behavior; (2) a history of stress with a parent mediates the effects of present stress with a parent; and (3) when the environment subsequent to stress is not attention demanding, repetitive cognition preempts immediate situation thoughts more than situation independent ones. Present stress was manipulated by having 96 undergraduates simulate coercive confrontation, collaborative confrontation, or collaborative decision making with a parent (the 1st experimental factor) under conditions of resolved or unresolved outcome (the 2nd factor). Ss then participated in a 20-min thought-sampling session that was scored for repetitive thought. An analysis of covariance indicated the influence of personal background variables on present emotional arousal and subsequent repetitive thought. Lack of closure alone influenced recurrent thought only at low levels of stress. (38 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Lexical output as related to children's vocabulary acquisition: Effects of sophisticated exposure and support for meaning.

A corpus of nearly 150,000 maternal word-tokens used by 53 low-income mothers in 263 mother–child conversations in 5 settings (e.g., play, mealtime, and book readings) was studied. Ninety-nine percent of maternal lexical input consisted of the 3,000 most frequent words. Children's vocabulary performance in kindergarten and later in 2nd grade related more to the occurrence of sophisticated lexical items than to quantity of lexical input overall. Density of sophisticated words heard and the density with which such words were embedded in helpful or instructive interactions, at age 5 at home, independently predicted over a third of the variance in children's vocabulary performance in both kindergarten and 2nd grade. These two variables, with controls for maternal education, child nonverbal IQ, and amount of child's talk produced during the interactive settings, at age 5, predicted 50% of the variance in children's 2nd-grade vocabulary. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Marital conflict and the development of infant–parent attachment relationships.

Couples were studied before and after the birth of their 1st child to understand processes by which marital conflict influences child development. Hypotheses were tested concerning direct and indirect processes relating marital conflict to the security of infant–mother and infant–father attachment and disorganized attachment behavior. Findings supported the prediction that chronic marital conflict interferes with sensitive, involved parenting and thereby predicts insecurity in attachment relationships, particularly for fathers. It was also argued that chronic marital conflict presents the infant with experiences of frightened or frightening parents and diminished behavioral options to alleviate accompanying distress. As predicted, disorganized attachment behavior with mother and father was explained by chronic marital conflict and not mediated by parental ego development or sensitive parenting. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Genetic liability, environment, and the development of fussiness in toddlers: The roles of maternal depression and parental responsiveness.

Using a longitudinal, prospective adoption design, the authors of this study examined the effects of the environment (adoptive parents' depressive symptoms and responsiveness) and genetic liability of maternal depression (inferred by birth mothers' major depressive disorder [MDD]) on the development of fussiness in adopted children between 9 and 18 months old. The sample included 281 families linked through adoption, with each family including 4 individuals (i.e., adopted child, birth mother, adoptive father and mother). Results showed that adoptive mothers' depressive symptoms when their child was 9 months old were positively associated with child fussiness at 18 months. A significant interaction between birth mothers' MDD and adoptive mothers' responsiveness indicated that children of birth mothers with MDD showed higher levels of fussiness at 18 months when adoptive mothers had been less responsive to the children at 9 months. However, in the context of high levels of adoptive mothers' responsiveness, children of birth mothers with MDD did not show elevated fussiness at 18 months. Findings are discussed in terms of gene–environment interactions in the intergenerational risk transmission of depression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Tolerance to rat parathyroid allograft induced by depletion of Ia+ donor cells plus short course cyclosporine]

Five hundred and thirty families with at least 1 child who had been referred to a dermatologist with atopic dermatitis were interviewed in an effort to determine whether factors such as the age of the mother when a child is born and/or birth rank can contribute to the development of atopic dermatitis. The families interviewed had a total of 1,084 children, or an average of 2 children per family. Sixty per cent of the children with atopic dermatitis were under 5 years of age. Ninety-one per cent of them had developed the disease before the age of 3; those most severely affected had developed the disease during the first year of life. In families with 2 children, but only 1 child with atopic dermatitis, the odds ratio for the second child to develop atopic dermatitis was 1.379 (0.025 < p < 0.05). The average maternal age was 24.8 to 25.2 years when giving birth to the first child and 28 years when giving birth to the second child, irrespective of the status of the child. Thus, atopic dermatitis can be related to birth rank or to the age of the mother.     

Mother–child play and maltreatment: A longitudinal analysis of emerging social behavior from infancy to toddlerhood.

Mother–child play of maltreating and nonmaltreating families was analyzed when infants were 12 months old (Time 1), and 2 years old (Time 2), as a context to examine children's developing cognitive and social skills. At Time 1, infants from abusing families demonstrated less independent and more imitative behavior during play than did infants from neglecting and nonmaltreating families, suggesting a delay in emerging social behaviors. In this longitudinal follow-up, mother–child play was reassessed 1 year later (N = 78), with a focus on children's engagement in nonplay and pretend play and on children's abilities to initiate social exchanges and respond to parental requests. Play and social behavior were coded from semistructured and unstructured play paradigms at both time points. Maternal attention-directing behavior and limit setting also was assessed. At Time 2, children from abusing, neglecting, and nonmaltreating families did not differ in cognitive play complexity. However, children from abusing families engaged in less child-initiated play than did children from neglecting and nonmaltreating families, demonstrating less socially competent behavior. Longitudinal analyses revealed child initiated play at Time 2 was negatively associated with abuse and with maternal physical attention directing behavior at Time 1. Child negative reactivity at Time 2 was positively associated with Time 1 maternal physical behavior and child imitation and with Time 2 maternal controlling behavior. Implications for early intervention efforts are emphasized. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Maternal IQ and home environment as determinants of early childhood intellectual competence: A developmental analysis.

Children at risk for sociocultural mental retardation were studied longitudinally from birth to 4 yrs of age. Maternal IQs were assessed before the children's births, and children's IQs and home environments were assessed at regular intervals during the 1st 4 yrs of life. Multiple regression analyses were conducted to separate the contributions of maternal IQ and home environment to child IQ at 24, 36, and 48 mo. When the effect of maternal IQ was controlled, home environment's association with child IQ was significant only at 48 mo. When the effect of home environment was controlled, maternal IQ's association with child IQ was significant only at 24 mo. Taken together, the 2 predictors explained 11, 17, and 29% of the variance in child IQ at the 3 respective times. The overall pattern suggested a monotonic increase in the predictability of child IQ within the context of a shift in the relative importance of maternal IQ and home environment as predictors. The integration of the study of behavioral genetics with the study of the process of intellectual development requires an ontogenetic perspective. (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Environmental factors related to schizophrenia in psychophysiologically labile high-risk males.

Research indicates that certain parameters of electrodermal functioning are related to schizophrenia and risk for schizophrenia. The present study investigated childhood environmental factors in 2 subgroups of high-risk 9–20 yr old males (offspring of schizophrenic mothers): those who showed patterns of electrodermal lability in childhood and later became schizophrenic (9 Ss), and a matched subgroup who showed similar patterns of electrodermal functioning but did not become schizophrenic (9 Ss). The variables examined were parental absence, institutionalization of the child, and quality of the home and neighborhood. The schizophrenic group had experienced significantly more paternal absence during the 2nd yr of life. Schizophrenic Ss also experienced significantly more childhood institutionalization, particularly in the 1st and 6th–20th yrs of life. The quality of home and neighborhood and maternal absence did not distinguish the 2 groups. Findings are interpreted as indicating the importance of paternal presence in ameliorating the disruptive effects of the schizophrenic mother on vulnerable male offspring. (42 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of birth order and spacing on mother–infant interactions.

Examined early differences in mother–infant interaction as a function of infant birth order and birth spacing. 193 3-mo old infants and their mothers were observed in the home for a 2-hr period during which a wide variety of mother and infant behaviors were recorded. Birth-order effects were significant, with firstborns generally receiving and emitting behavior more frequently than later-borns. Birth-spacing effects were significant for maternal behavior, such that very closely and widely spaced infants received more maternal attention than middle-spaced groups. Both biological and environmental interpretations of these data are offered. The data are related to the theoretical model of the reciprocal nature of the infant–caregiver relationship. (32 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)