Affect attunement and infant-mother attachment.
Item
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Title
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Affect attunement and infant-mother attachment.
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Identifier
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AAI9707152
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identifier
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9707152
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Creator
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Siegel, Nancy Jean.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Arietta Slade
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Date
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1996
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Psychology, Developmental | Psychology, Experimental | Psychology, Social
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Abstract
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This study investigates the relationship between early affective communication between mothers and infants and children's later social and emotional functioning. Affect attunement, a type of interactive exchange most fully described by Stern (1985), is recorded. Ainsworth's Strange Situation (1978) which assesses the quality of the infant-mother attachment, and is widely predictive of many later aspects of child functioning, is the outcome variable. Fifty three primiparous, middle-class mothers and their infants were the subject of this study. Affect attunement was assessed when the infant was 10-months and the infant-mother attachment was assessed at fourteen months. The affect attunement coding instrument was designed by the experimenter, and is based on the coding system used by Haft & Slade (1989). The attunement instrument records infants' spontaneous affect displays, interactive context of the display, type of maternal response, and "sharedness" or degree of emotional resonance evident in the maternal response. Two predictions were made: (1) infants judged securely attached were expected to have benefited from higher levels of affect attunement than infants judged insecurely attached and; (2) infants judged securely attached were expected to have benefited from an intermediate level of maternal responsivity, while infants judged insecurely attached were expected to have received extreme levels of maternal responsivity. Results indicate mothers of secure and insecure infants are similarly responsive, and evidence about the same capacity to attune to their infants' affective expressions.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
