The ability to self-generate positive emotions is an important component of emotion regulation. In this study, we focus on children's latency to express positive emotions following challenging situations and assess whether this ability operates through early maternal sensitivity and children's effortful control. Longitudinal relations between maternal sensitivity, infant negative affect, effort...

OBJECTIVE The goal of this study was to determine whether obesity in adolescence is related to the quality of the early maternal-child relationship. METHODS We analyzed data from 977 of 1364 participants in the Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development. Child attachment security and maternal sensitivity were assessed by observing mother-child interaction at 15, 24, and 36 months of age....

Abstract Maternal sensitivity and supportive discipline are important determinants of child self-regulation. Some evidence suggests that specific genetic or temperamental markers determine children’s susceptibility to the impact maternal parenting on Cortisol reactivity as a marker moderating relation between self-regulation has not yet been studied. In this longitudinal population-based study ...

OBJECTIVE: The present study was designed to examine the extent to which mothers' emotional (i.e., empathy, negative emotions) and cognitive (i.e., accurate detection of distress, goals about infant crying, and emotion efficacy) responses to infant distress are related to maternal sensitivity in tasks designed to elicit infant distress. Mothers' emotional and cognitive responses to distress wer...

The current study represents the first longitudinal investigation of the potential effects of breastfeeding duration on maternal sensitivity over the following decade. This study also examined whether infant attachment security at 24 months would mediate longitudinal relations between breastfeeding duration and changes in maternal sensitivity over time. Using data from 1,272 families from the N...

The current study investigated maternal sensitivity in a treatment-seeking sample of predominately Latina, low-income pregnant women with histories of interpersonal trauma exposure. Pregnant women (N = 52; M = 27.08 years, SD = 5.66) who enrolled in a study of a perinatal adaptation of child-parent psychotherapy reported on their posttraumatic stress symptoms and child-rearing attitudes at base...

A transactional model examining the longitudinal association between vagal regulation (as indexed by vagal withdrawal) and maternal sensitivity from age 2.5 to age 5.5 was assessed. The sample included 356 children (171 male, 185 female) and their mothers who participated in a laboratory visit at age 2.5, 4.5, and 5.5. Cardiac vagal tone was obtained during a baseline task and during emotional ...

BACKGROUND AND METHOD The aim of this study was to examine whether a mother's sensitivity towards her one-year-old infant is related to the infant's propensity to engage in 'triadic' relations--that is, to orientate to an adult's engagement with objects and events in the world, for example in sharing experiences with an adult. In order to determine that any effects were specific to infants' beh...