Still mother after all these years: Infants seek more proximity to mothers compared to fathers

• In Event: Fathers‘ involvement in nuclear and separated families: Implications for parenting arrangements

Abstract

As already Bronfenbrenner has pointed out, societal change can also trigger changes in developmental processes affecting child development. This may be also the case for paternal influences on their children. Early research on child-father attachment in the 1970s examined whether children would show attachment behaviors towards fathers at all. Cohen and Campos (1974) reported that infants expressed more attachment behavior towards mother than to father and even less to strangers. Lamb (1976) reported similar results. Since then, societal change in gender roles and parenting practices have led to more paternal involvement in child care. Moreover, increasing research on child-father attachment emphasized the important role of child-father attachment for child development. However, the effects of fathers’ sensitivity, sensitive challenging play or involvement are still under debate.
We therefore replicated the original study by Cohen and Campos (1974) adding a mild source of distress (e.g. inducing negative emotions by unexpected acoustic stimuli) to the observed interaction to examine potential preferences of mothers, fathers or strangers in infants. In addition, we controlled the effects of different forms of sensitivity and involvement on infants’ preferences.
In this study, 50 children (52% female) with a mean age of 14.07 months and their parents were visited at home. Frequency and duration of single attachment behaviors (i.e., proximity seeking, body contact, parent-directed vocalization, eye-contact) were observed during play and during alarming events. In addition, we rated sensitivity (Ainsworth’s scale) and separately sensitive challenging play (Grossmann et al., 2002) of both parents in separate situations.
Results revealed that infants showed significantly longer proximity seeking, body contact, and parent-directed vocalization towards mothers compared to fathers. Parents did not differ in sensitivity or play sensitivity. Duration of attachment behavior towards mothers was predicted by maternal sensitivity. However, this was not the case for fathers. Paternal involvement was negatively associated with fathers’ play sensitivity.
The results will be discussed regarding the interpretation of behavioral preferences in custody decisions in early childhood, the relevance of additionally assessing observed caregiving of both parents and criteria to interpret the parental involvement compared to interaction quality.

Authors

• Peter F. Zimmermann, University of Wuppertal
  Presenting Author

• Laura Mühling, Bergische Universität Wuppertal
  Non-Presenting Author

• Alexandra Iwanski, Bergische Universität Wuppertal
  Non-Presenting Author