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Mind-mindedness, Sensitivity, and Involvement in First-Time Expectant and New Fathers

Fri, April 9, 12:55 to 1:55pm EDT (12:55 to 1:55pm EDT), Virtual

Abstract

Despite increasing paternal involvement in infant caretaking (Alio et al., 2013), parenting research on fathers still lags behind that on mothers (Cabrera et al., 2018), particularly in the prenatal and early postnatal phase. At the same time, parenting behavior such as sensitivity and involvement origins in the perinatal period (Cabrera et al., 2008; Hechler et al., 2019) and is known, for fathers, to contribute substantially and independently to a healthy child development (Hazen et al., 2010; Wilson & Prior, 2011). Here, we examine differences in and associations between mind-mindedness, sensitivity and involvement in expectant and new fathers.
A total of 73 first-time expectant fathers (Mgestational age = 24.95 weeks, rangegestational age = 20.29 to 31.86 weeks) and 79 new fathers (Minfant age = 11.53 weeks, rangeinfant age = 7.57 to 21.57 weeks) were recruited as part of a study on the transition to fatherhood. Participants (Mage = 32.87 years, rangeage = 25.06 to 56.5 years) were observed while taking care of an infant simulator (expectant fathers) or interacting with their own infant (new fathers) for ten minutes to assess paternal sensitivity with the Ainsworth Sensitivity Scale (Ainsworth et al., 1974). Mind-mindedness was assessed with the Five Minute Speech Sample (FMSS) where participants talked about their thoughts and feelings regarding their (unborn) infant. For coding, the Meins and Fernyhough (2015) manual was used as a guideline. Involvement was assessed with an application on participants’ smartphones, assessing their thoughts about (i.e., cognitive/affective involvement), proximity to (i.e., accessibility), and interaction with the (unborn) infant. Pearson correlations revealed a significant positive correlation between cognitive/affective involvement and engagement for expectant (r = .36, p = .003) and new (r = .28, p = .023) fathers. Hence, both were averaged into one component indicating involvement. Furthermore, participants and their partners completed online questionnaires, measuring the division of household tasks.
As shown in Table 1, a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) revealed that new fathers scored significantly higher on mind-mindedness, involvement and accessibility than expectant fathers. In contrast, expectant fathers spent more time on household tasks when compared to new fathers. Expectant and new fathers showed similar levels of sensitivity. Partial correlations (corrected for group membership, i.e., expectant versus new father), revealed no significant associations between mind-mindedness, sensitivity, involvement and the division of household tasks.
In sum, the current study demonstrated the transition to fatherhood to be a period of psychological and behavioral change. New fathers showed more mind-mindedness, involvement and accessibility in the infant’s life than expectant fathers. This could be due to development of an emotional connection with the infant and the recognition of the infant as a real human being, both known to develop during the transition to fatherhood with the infant becoming more visible and tangible (Habib & Lancaster, 2010; Kowlessar et al., 2015). Strikingly, new fathers took on less household tasks at the expense of mothers. Possibly, this is due to the fact that, in most European countries, parental leave opportunities of fathers are limited compared to those of mothers (Moss, 2019).

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