Depressed and Well Mothers' Emotion Interpretation Accuracy and the Quality of Mother-Infant Interaction

The inadequate parenting associated with mothers' depression may be related to mothers" problems in interpreting infants" emotiotial expressions. The relations between depressed and well mothers' accuracy at interpreting babies' facial expressions and the quality of the mothers' interactions with their infants were examined. In partial support of our hypotheses, depressed mothers' level of depressive symptoms was ass(K"iated with less iiccuracy. especially regarding positive emotions. Contrary to expectations, depressed mothers did not differ from well mothers in terms of their emotion accuracy. FurIhemiore, depressed mothers' accuracy at interpreting infants' emotions was not significanlly related to the quality of their interaction with their infants: iti contrast, well mothers' accuracy for infants' negative emotions was associated with bctler interaction quality. T^ese findings provide new information about depressed tnothers" emotional interpretations and their parenting. The different pattern of findings for depressed and well tnothers suggests that other mediating factors are important, which are discussed.