Poster #48 - Infant Distress in a Separation Procedure: Associations With Early Maternal Sensitivity and Negative Affectivity

• In Event: Poster Session 20

Abstract

Introduction
Distress is an important part of early infant emotional life and is one of the challenging features of early parenthood (Tarabulsy and al., 1997). Distress is a basic emotion that is present at birth (Izard, 1978), serving communicational and interactional functions. Maternal response to distress has often been labeled maternal sensitivity (MS). MS concerns the way mothers recognize and respond to their baby with predictability, consistency, and warmth (Ainsworth and al., 1978). Crockenberg and Leerkes (2004) have demonstrated that MS during interactions is linked to lower levels of infant distress.

Infant temperament may also be linked to distress. According to Rothbart and Bates (2006), infant temperament involves individual differences in reactivity and regulation that are inherent to the child and that are observed on the level of emotional, attentional, and motor manifestations. As a temperamental trait, negative affectivity (NA) has often been studied in its relation to infant negative emotion manifestations (Leerkes and Zhou, 2018). Several studies have demonstrated that infants rated as high in NA show greater levels of distress (Thomas and al, 2017).

The purpose of the study is to examine the relative contributions of MS and NA in predicting infant distress intensity in mother-infant separation. Much of the work in this area has relied parental self-reports of distress, short observation sessions of MS and cross-sectional designs. The current study will call on a longitudinal design where MS is based on prolonged observations and infant distress is coded from an ecologically valid interaction task.

Method
93 mother-infant dyads participated. NA was assessed at infant age four months with the Infant Behavior Questionnaire (IBQ-R : Gartstein and Rothbart, 2003). A NA factor was derived via principal component analysis of the IBQ-R. Table 1 presents the correlations between the involved subscales of the IBQ-R. MS was assessed at eight months via a two hour home observation with the Maternal Behavior Q-Set (MBQS : Pederson et Moran, 1995). The Strange situation procedure (Ainsworth and al., 1978) was conducted at 16 months. Infant distress generated during separations was coded with the Thompson and Lamb (1984) scheme.

Results and discussion
Bivariate correlations are reported in Table 2. Correlations between MS and distress were significant. However, NA was not linked to distress. Multiple regressions were conducted to test indirect links – none were found. Moderation analysis revealed no interaction between MS and NA in predicting infant distress.

In this study, the only infant feature linked to infant distress is environmental. This finding may be link to the procedure, which is at its core a relationship-based procedure, where the infant is perhaps more inclined to rely on relationship-based elements to manage emotions. Results may also be attributable to methodological issues (Tarabulsy and al., 2008), only the observational variables are presently significantly linked. Overall, this association explains less than 10% of infant distress variance, suggesting that other, unmeasured variables are involved. Discussion focuses on measures of distress and NA, and the need for other research designs to appropriately address the variables that contribute to infant distress.

Authors

• William Trottier-Dumont, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR)
  Presenting Author

• Maëlle Scrosati

• Annabelle Harvey

• Jessie Tremblay

• Jean-Pascal Lemelin, Université de Sherbrooke

• Tristan Milot, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières

• Jessica Pearson, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR)

• Claire Baudry, Université du Québec Á  Trois Rivières

• George M Tarabulsy, University Laval