Poster #206 - Development of Infant Emotion-Regulatory Processes: A Longitudinal Analysis of the Still-Face Paradigm

• In Event: 1-169 - Poster Session 04
  In Poster Session: PS 04 Section - Social, Emotional, Personality

Integrative Statement

The separation segment of the Still-Face Paradigm (SFP; Tronick et al., 1978) violates the established pattern of social reciprocity between mother and infant, which results in both infant distress and use of early emotion-regulatory processes. Emotion-regulatory processes, established in infancy, predict later social-emotional functioning, cognitive development, and the presence of internalizing and externalizing symptoms (Lundqvist-Persson, 2001; Eisenberg et al., 2009; Voigt et al., 2012,), making such processes and how they unfold across development important to understand. To add to the limited work examining how emotion-regulatory processes unfold across infancy, the current study examines the change in infant emotion-regulatory processes during SFP across time (i.e., six- to 12-months).

Mother-infant dyads from a rural setting (n=179; 54.5% female infants) were recruited to participate in a longitudinal study. Over half of mothers (57.3%) qualified as economically stressed, defined as an income-to-needs ratio of less than 2.0. Considering the setting, the population was racially diverse, as 29.1% of participants identified as a racial minority. At six-, eight-, 10-, and 12-months postpartum, dyads attended a laboratory session where they engaged in the SFP. The two-minute still-face segment was coded offline, second-by-second, for infant regulatory behaviors, including mother-orienting, self-distraction, self-soothing, non-distress vocalizations, attention-gaining, distancing/escaping, and negative affect. The final variables reflect the proportion of time each infant spent engaging in the regulatory behavior.

Infant regulatory processes were analyzed using hierarchical linear modeling (HLM-7). Time (i.e., six-, eight-, 10-, and 12-months; level-one variable) was coded as 0, 1, 2, and 3 respectively. Across development, infants decreased utilization of self-soothing, increased utilization of distancing/escaping, and increased displays of negative affect (see Table 1). Infant sex (level-two variable; female = 1, male = 2) moderated the relationship between time and infant use of mother-orienting, where mother-orienting increased across time for females but decreased for males (see Table 1). There was no significant relationship between time and self-distraction, non-distressed vocalizations, and attention-gaining behaviors.

The findings support and extend the current literature base. Infant use of self-soothing behaviors (e.g., finger-sucking), considered a more primitive behavior, decreased across time, suggesting that more advanced regulatory processes may be developing and taking precedence. Further, previous research supports the evidence suggesting that infant distancing/escaping increases, as motor control and activity increases develops across infancy (Buss & Plomin, 1975). Prior evidence, both reported by parents and observed, also suggests that negative affect (a distress cue used to gain mother’s attention) increases across infancy (e.g., Bridgett et al., 2009). Finally, mother-orienting behavior increased for females, but decreased for males. This finding is consistent with work suggesting that female infants look to their mothers for social and emotional cues more often than males (Rosen et al., 1992). This is among the few studies (e.g., Planalp & Braungart-Rieker, 2015), to our knowledge, that reported the change in emotion-regulatory processes utilized during the separation phase of the SFP across infancy. Prior to presentation, factors (data currently being processed) that may influence trajectories (e.g., caregiving behavior, and other aspects of the family environment) will be examined. Further implications will be discussed.

Authors

• Erin R. McKay, Northern Illinois University
  Presenting Author

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

• Sabrina Ung, Northern Illinois University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Leanna Rosinski, Northern Illinois University
  Non-Presenting Author

• David Bridgett, Northern Illinois University
  Non-Presenting Author