Julia M. Braungart-Rieker - US grants

DESCRIPTION (Adapted from applicant's description): Research has recently documented that behaviors such as self-comforting (e.g., thumb sucking) and gaze aversion during frustrating situations lead to subsequent reductions in negative affect in infants as young as 4- and 5-months of age. What is less well known, however, are the factors associated with individual differences in emotion regulation. That is, there is a range of abilities in emotion regulation and what accounts for such variability is still relatively unknown. It is proposed that the development of emotion regulation is complex and involves multiple systems within the infant and his/her environment. Thus, factors such as the child's gender, temperament, cognitive, emerging language development, the developing internal working model of the attachment relationship with their mother and father, parent sensitivity, and familial conditions (e.g., marital conflict) may all play a part in the development of emotion regulation. Furthermore, it is proposed that variation in emotion regulation, even during infancy, will predict later social competence, (e.g., self-control), the ability to comply with adult requests, as well as self-assertive behaviors. The father is also included in this study because recent research is showing that the fathers' role may differ from the mothers during infancy; fathers may be particularly salient in children's development of regulation skills. The study will be longitudinal in which infants and parents will be observed in a laboratory setting when infants are 3, 5, 7, 12, 14, and 20 months of age. The first three visits will center on infants' affective and regulatory responses during the Still-Face Paradigm as well as mothers' and fathers' sensitivity in responding to their infants' emotionality. Attachment data will be collected at the 12 (infant-mother) and 14 month (infant-father) visits. Finally, measures of children's social competence during several laboratory paradigms as well as mothers' and fathers' control tactics will be assessed at the 20 month visit. Questionnaire data at appropriate ages also will be obtained from mothers and fathers to assess parents' perceptions of their child's temperament, language development, parental involvement, and marital conflict. In sum, four goals guide this study: (1) To examine the correlates and predictors of affect regulation from infancy to toddlerhood. (2) To examine the degree to which emotion regulatory patterns during early infancy are predictive of infant-parent attachment and to what extent such relations are mediated or moderated by parent sensitivity. (3) To examine the extent to which emotion regulatory patterns and attachment during infancy predict later styles of emotion regulation and social competence during toddlerhood. (4) With respect to the above-mentioned questions, to compare processes occurring for infant-mother dyads versus infant-father dyads.

Project Summary Preventative interventions involving video-feedback programs to promote parenting (VIPP; Juffer et al., 2008) have been shown to be successful in improving maternal sensitivity and infant-mother attachment security (Bakermans-Kranenberg et al., 2008). However, interventions might be substantially more effective if broader elements of family systems were also addressed, including father-child and inter-parental relationships, particularly given the growing body of evidence that highlights the importance of father involvement and positive engagement in children's socio-emotional development. Infancy is a particularly sensitive and vulnerable period not only for the child but also for the parents who often experience heightened daily stress, parenting demands, work-family role strain, and inter-parental discord associated with changes in the family (Feeney et al., 2001).The proposed longitudinal study addresses major gaps by testing the effectiveness of family-wide preventative interventions designed to promote healthy development and functioning in infants, mothers, and fathers, including low-income families. This three-phase study involves a rigorous randomized clinical trial (RCT) approach and will involve a demographically diverse sample of 400 families. Phase I involves a lab and home pre-test (infants 6 months of age) and 8-week intervention period; Phase II (12 months) includes an initial post-test, and Phase III (16-18 months) involves a second post-test. Families will be randomly assigned to one of four conditions: sensitivity intervention (SI), couples intervention (CI), both (SI + CI) or control. Specific aims of the study include: (1) An evaluation of the effectiveness of the SI, CI, and SI+CI interventions at improving parental sensitivity, parental efficacy, parenting stress, inter-parental conflict, infant affective development, attachment security, behavior problems, and socio-emotional competence; (2) A test of the mechanisms through which change in behavior occurs. For example, relations between SI participation in Phase I and child attachment in Phase III may be mediated by enhanced parent sensitivity in Phase II. Relations between CI participation and child outcomes may be mediated by inter-parental functioning and more effective communication skills; (3) An examination of factors that moderate the effectiveness of the interventions, determining which families benefit the most. Potential moderators include demographic characteristics, family (dis)organization, parents' own caregiving history, parents' depressive and anxious systems, and infant negative temperament; (4) Mother-father comparisons on direct effects, mediating mechanisms and moderating processes. This study builds upon past research towards increasing children's emotional security in multiple family relationships by testing new directions in preventative interventions in infancy, addressing the mother-child, father-child, and mother-father relationships. The goal is to foster children's socio-emotional development and security through cost-effective family-wide interventions in infancy that promote sensitive parent-infant interactions and improved inter-parental communication.