Poster #206 - The Influence of Context and Infant Sex on the Development of Early Regulation

• In Event: 3-206 - Poster Session 13
  In Poster Session: PS 13 Section - Social, Emotional, Personality

Integrative Statement

Broadly, early temperament-based self-regulatory abilities have been positively linked to concurrent and future achievement, health-related outcomes, and overall well-being, such that better self-regulatory capabilities coincide with or predict better outcomes. Across the lifespan, early exposure to extrinsic factors, such as cumulative risk, home chaos, parental marital quality, and positive parenting behaviors, and sex have been associated with individual differences in self-regulation. Although studies have examined these relationships heavily in childhood and beyond, few studies have attempted to examine the impact of these factors on the development of self-regulation during infancy, particularly in regards to growth trajectories. To address this gap, the current study examined the development of regulatory abilities of infants across four time points using latent growth curve modeling. It was anticipated that sex differences would arise prior to 12 months of age and that girls would exhibit better self-regulatory abilities than boys by the end of the first year of life. Additionally, it was anticipated that more exposure to home chaos and cumulative risk would result in poorer initial levels and slower development of self-regulatory abilities over the first year, while exposure to positive parenting and marital satisfaction would result in better initial levels and faster development of self-regulatory abilities in the same time period. Mother-infant dyads (n=179) participated in the current study. Four months post-partum mothers completed a measure of home chaos and marital satisfaction and information was gathered to determine family cumulative risk. Mothers completed the Revised Infant Behavior Questionnaire (IBQ-R; Gartstein & Rothbart, 2003) when infants were 6, 8, 10, and 12 months of age. Only the Orienting/Regulation (O/R) factor from the questionnaire was utilized for the purposes of this study. Mothers and their infants attended a laboratory visit at 6 months post-partum during which they participated in an unstructured free play task. The task was later coded using the Parent Child Early Relational Assessment (PCERA; Clark, 1981), of which only the Positive Parenting factor was used for this study. Results (Figure 1) indicated a significant decrease in infant O/R between 6 and 12 months of age. Male and female infants initially exhibited a comparable level of O/R, but, over the first year of life, male infants displayed faster, steeper decreases in O/R than female infants. Higher martial satisfaction was associated with higher initial infant O/R, but not the slope of O/R over time. Cumulative risk, home chaos, and positive parenting were not found to be significantly associated with initial levels of or changes in the trajectory of O/R; however, home chaos emerged as a trend level predictor of initial levels of O/R. The results of this study add to limited prior findings indicating a decrease in O/R across infancy. Additionally, findings suggest that the discrepancies in regulatory abilities between girls and boys begin to form during infancy and increase quickly with age and that martial satisfaction plays a role in the foundation of regulatory abilities infants display at 6 months of age. The implications of these findings and future directions will be discussed.

Authors

• Meghan J. Kanya, Department of Psychology, Northern Illinois University
  Presenting Author

• Matthias Miller, Northern Illinois University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Leanna Rosinski, Northern Illinois University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Matthew Atterberg, Northern Illinois University
  Non-Presenting Author

• David Bridgett, Northern Illinois University
  Non-Presenting Author