Journal article
Mothers who are securely attached in pregnancy show more attuned infant mirroring 7 months postpartum
Infant behavior & development, Vol.37(4), pp.491-504
11/2014
DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2014.06.002
PMID: 25020112
Abstract
•We examined mothers’ prenatal attachment and their mirroring at 7 months postpartum.•Secure and insecure/dismissing mothers were compared, along with their infants.•Two mother groups mirrored their infant's external behavior at a similar frequency.•Secure mothers mirrored their infants’ internal states more than insecure mothers.•Infants of secure mothers attended to their mothers more frequently.
This study contrasted two forms of mother–infant mirroring: the mother's imitation of the infant's facial, gestural, or vocal behavior (i.e., “direct mirroring”) and the mother's ostensive verbalization of the infant's internal state, marked as distinct from the infant's own experience (i.e., “intention mirroring”). Fifty mothers completed the Adult Attachment Interview (Dynamic Maturational Model) during the third trimester of pregnancy. Mothers returned with their infants 7 months postpartum and completed a modified still-face procedure. While direct mirroring did not distinguish between secure and insecure/dismissing mothers, secure mothers were observed to engage in intention mirroring more than twice as frequently as did insecure/dismissing mothers. Infants of the two mother groups also demonstrated differences, with infants of secure mothers directing their attention toward their mothers at a higher frequency than did infants of insecure/dismissing mothers. The findings underscore marked and ostensive verbalization as a distinguishing feature of secure mothers’ well-attuned, affect-mirroring communication with their infants.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Mothers who are securely attached in pregnancy show more attuned infant mirroring 7 months postpartum
- Creators
- Sohye Kim - Department of Pediatrics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, United StatesPeter Fonagy - Menninger Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, United StatesJon Allen - Menninger Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, United StatesSheila Martinez - Department of Pediatrics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, United StatesUdita Iyengar - Department of Pediatrics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, United StatesLane Strathearn - Department of Pediatrics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, United States
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Infant behavior & development, Vol.37(4), pp.491-504
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.infbeh.2014.06.002
- PMID
- 25020112
- NLM abbreviation
- Infant Behav Dev
- ISSN
- 0163-6383
- eISSN
- 1879-0453
- Publisher
- Elsevier Inc
- Grant note
- DOI: 10.13039/100000071, name: Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, award: K23HD43097, R01HD065819; name: General Clinical Research Center, award: MO1RR00188; name: the Baylor Child Health Research Center: Pediatrics Mentored Research Program, award: K12HD41648; DOI: 10.13039/100000026, name: National Institute on Drug Abuse, award: R01DA026437
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 11/2014
- Academic Unit
- Psychiatry; Stead Family Department of Pediatrics; Iowa Neuroscience Institute; Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics; Neuroscience and Pharmacology
- Record Identifier
- 9984040265702771
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