Infants at social risk: Relations among infant maltreatment, maternal behavior, and infant attachment behavior.

Fifty-six 12-mo-old infants, including 10 maltreated infants, 18 nonmaltreated high-risk infants, and 28 matched low-income controls, were videotaped in naturalistic settings at home with their mothers for 40 min and were observed 2 weeks later in the Ainsworth Strange Situation. Maltreating mothers were rated higher than nonmaltreating mothers on covertly hostile and interfering behaviors toward their infants at home. Maltreated infants were more avoidant of their mothers in the Strange Situation than nonmaltreated infants. Correlations between maternal behaviors at home and infant behaviors in the Strange Situation revealed that mothers whose infants displayed resistant behavior on reunion were rated at home as less verbally communicative and mothers whose infants displayed avoidant behavior on reunion were rated at home as more covertly hostile. Infants showing mixed avoidance and resistance were more likely to have extremely uncommunicative mothers than were infants who showed avoidance alone. Use of the behavioral rating scales for avoidance and resistance produced clearer findings than use of the final attachment classifications. Reasons for the discrepancies between analyses of classifications and analyses of behavior ratings were identified. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)