Attachment linked predictors of women's emotional and cognitive responses to infant distress

• Published in: Attachment & human development Vol. 8; no. 1; pp. 11 - 32
• Main Authors: Leerkes, Esther M., Siepak, Kathryn J.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Abingdon Routledge 01-03-2006; Taylor and Francis
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Adult attachment; Anger; attributions; Biological and medical sciences; Cognition; Couple and family; Crying - psychology; emotional response; Emotions; Facial Expression; Fear; Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Humans; Infant Behavior; infant crying; Infant, Newborn; Interpersonal Relations; Object Attachment; Personality Development; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Social psychology; Surveys and Questionnaires; Women - psychology; Human; Affect affectivity; Parental behavior; Adult attachment; Infant; emotional response; Emotion emotionality; Crying; Mother child relation; Attribution; Maternal behavior; Affective attachment; Social interaction; Female; Causality; Predictive factor; attributions; infant crying
• ISSN: 1461-6734; 1469-2988
• DOI: 10.1080/14616730600594450

The purpose of this study was to examine associations among women's emotional and cognitive responses to infant fear and anger and to identify attachment linked predictors of these responses. Four hundred and forty Caucasian and African American undergraduate college women viewed video clips of two crying infants, one displaying anger and the other displaying fear. They identified what the infants were feeling, made causal attributions about the cause of crying, rated their own emotional reactions to the crying infants, and reported on the extent to which their parents met their emotional needs in childhood and their current adult attachment patterns. Emotional and cognitive responses to infant fear and anger were interrelated. Consistent with prediction, a history of parental emotional rejection and adult attachment anxiety and avoidance correlated negatively with accurate identification of emotions and positively with negative attributions, amusement, and neutral responses to infant distress. Adult attachment security moderated the effects of early parental rejection on emotional and cognitive responses to infant distress, and these results varied based on race and parent gender. Results are discussed from an attachment theory perspective.