تنظیم احساسات نوزاد: روابط برای زمان خواب در دسترس بودن عاطفی، دلبستگی، و خلق و خو

Abstract The present study examines the influences of mothers’ emotional availability toward their infants during bedtime, infant attachment security, and interactions between bedtime parenting and attachment with infant temperamental negative affectivity, on infants’ emotion regulation strategy use at 12 and 18 months. Infants’ emotion regulation strategies were assessed during a frustration task that required infants to regulate their emotions in the absence of parental support. Whereas emotional availability was not directly related to infants’ emotion regulation strategies, infant attachment security had direct relations with infants’ orienting toward the environment and tension reduction behaviors. Both maternal emotional availability and security of the mother–infant attachment relationship interacted with infant temperamental negative affectivity to predict two strategies that were less adaptive in regulating frustration.

. Introduction The ability to regulate emotions and related behaviors in socially adaptive ways is an essential aspect of children's successful development (Calkins and Leerkes, 2010, Halberstadt et al., 2001, Kopp, 1989 and Thompson, 1994). Lack of emotion regulation skills during infancy and toddlerhood is not only indicative of later aggressive or withdrawn behaviors (Calkins, Smith, Gill, & Johnson, 1998) but also predictive of problems in cognitive and social development through the preschool and early school years (Eisenberg et al., 1998 and Morris et al., 2007). Both theory and empirical studies indicate that the parent–infant relationship exerts significant influence on infants’ regulatory capacities (Cassidy, 1994, Kogan and Carter, 1996, Sroufe, 1995 and Sroufe, 2005). The quality of parent–child interactions has been particularly emphasized as an influence on children's developing emotion regulation (Spinrad and Stifter, 2002 and Sroufe, 1995). It is during healthy interactions with parents that a child acquires knowledge of emotions and adaptive regulatory strategies (Chang et al., 2003 and Parke et al., 1992). Indeed, the ways in which mothers respond to their children's emotional cues are related to children's emotional competence (Eisenberg et al., 1998 and Morris et al., 2007). Despite the wealth of studies examining relations between the quality of parenting and child regulatory outcomes, most studies relate individual dimensions of parenting (e.g., sensitivity) in relation to various aspects of emotional competence in infants, toddlers, and preschoolers (e.g., emotion understanding, intensity and duration of emotional expression, and emotion regulation strategies). We thus employ, in the present study, the multidimensional construct of emotional availability that involves affective attunement to the child's emotions, needs, and goals, an acceptance of both positive and negative emotions in the child, and adaptive regulation of emotional exchanges during interactions with the child (Biringen, 2000 and Emde and Easterbrooks, 1985). Emotionally available parents engage in sensitive, structuring, non-intrusive, and non-hostile behaviors that enable the child to use the parent for comfort and support as well as engage in adaptive emotion regulation strategies (Biringen, 2000, Biringen et al., 1998, Kogan and Carter, 1996 and Little and Carter, 2005). The present study examines parental emotional availability during the context of bedtime as a predictor of child emotion regulation. Bedtime is a naturalistic, daily-occurring context for which parents have the goal of bringing the child to a comfortable, restful, and non-distressed affective state so that the child can fall asleep and sleep throughout the night, typically apart from parents. Cessation of parent–infant interactions and separation from parents during bedtime may potentially be distressing for children who wish to maintain contact or interaction with their parents (Sadeh, Tikotzky, & Scher, 2010). Emotionally available parents who respond contingently and appropriately to child signals, make effective use of bedtime routines to facilitate children's sleep by avoiding intense or high-level stimulation of the child when the child is settling to sleep at bedtime, and refraining from overt and covert expressions of irritability or anger when interacting with the child. These routines are expected to promote a safe and secure affective state in their children, and to enable adaptive emotion regulatory capabilities during distressing situations. Taken together, the findings of studies that have examined individual dimensions of parenting (i.e., sensitivity, structuring, intrusiveness, or hostility) in relation to infant emotional competence indicate that early caregiving plays an important role in the development of children's emotion regulation (Kogan and Carter, 1996 and Leerkes et al., 2009). Children with mothers that respond sensitively to their changing emotional cues tend to show lower negative reactivity and more regulatory strategies than children whose mothers are less sensitive (Spinrad & Stifter, 2002). Sensitive responsivity to children's distress also seems to engender children's use of more age-appropriate emotion regulation strategies that are less self-oriented (e.g., thumb sucking) and more parent-oriented (e.g., focuses gaze on parent; Eisenberg et al., 1998). Parents structure children's self-regulation of emotion through encouraging the child to shift attention, and modeling the use of adaptive strategies in response to distress (Cole et al., 2009 and Raikes and Thompson, 2006). Mothers who engage in emotionally available structuring pace their activity level in response to the child's cues such as gaze aversion, scaffold self-soothing by providing security objects, and provide positive guidance that will help children learn to regulate their emotions in adaptive ways (Calkins et al., 1998 and Leerkes et al., 2009). When parents react negatively (e.g., reject, punish, or ignore) to children's distress, negative arousal is less likely to decrease, and maladaptive regulation in the form of minimization or over-regulation of emotions is likely to occur (Cassidy, 1994). Studies have shown that maternal intrusive and hostile behaviors (e.g., being constantly at the child, expressing irritation or anger, and scolding or teasing) that exert excessive or negative control over the child are linked with greater orienting toward sources of frustration and fewer adaptive emotion regulation strategies in the child (Calkins et al., 1998, Chang et al., 2003 and Little and Carter, 2005). Along with parenting quality, the mother–infant attachment relationship has both theoretical and empirical links to children's emotion regulation. According to attachment theory, parent-initiated regulation of emotions during face-to-face interactions in the earliest months, help infants to gain the ability for dyadic coregulation in the first year (Cassidy, 1994 and Sroufe, 1995). With repeated interactions with parents in emotion-laden contexts, infants become increasingly able to autonomously use strategies to regulate their emotional arousal (Calkins et al., 1998, Feldman et al., 1999 and Kopp, 1989). The organization of behaviors within the attachment relationship thus affects how children organize and regulate their emotions and behaviors toward the environment (Ainsworth, 1979, Sroufe and Waters, 1977 and Thompson, 2008). Attachment theory posits securely attached children to show more adaptive emotion regulation than children with insecure attachment (Bridges and Grolnick, 1995, Cassidy, 1994 and Sroufe, 2005). Children who have confidence in the parent's capacity to provide assistance in regulating their affective states will be able to better regulate emotional arousal and also effectively explore their environment which, in turn, has positive implications for adjustment (Eisenberg et al., 2001, Sroufe, 1995 and Sroufe, 2005). Indeed, secure attachment is associated with more adaptive emotion regulation (Diener et al., 2002 and Waters et al., 2010), including more parent-oriented and less object-orientated emotion regulation strategies during a frustration task (Braungart and Stifter, 1991, Diener et al., 2002 and Leerkes and Wong, 2012). On the other hand, children with insecure attachments show greater emotion dysregulation (Sroufe, 2005), placing them at greater risk for externalizing and internalizing problems, and psychopathology (Cassidy, 1999 and Madigan et al., 2007). Insecure-avoidant infants who likely experienced repeated rejection from their parent tend to engage in less parent-oriented, more object-oriented, and more self-comforting emotion regulation strategies (Braungart and Stifter, 1991, Crugnola et al., 2011, Diener et al., 2002, Leerkes and Wong, 2012 and Martins et al., 2012). Insecure-resistant infants are more likely to employ high levels of parent-oriented emotion regulation strategies possibly due to their uncertainty of parental emotional availability based on a history of inconsistent care (Bridges and Grolnick, 1995 and Cassidy, 1994). They are also more likely to use tension-reduction strategies, such as hitting or throwing the object (e.g., toy) when distressed (Calkins and Johnson, 1998 and Leerkes and Wong, 2012). Both temperament and attachment perspectives on children's emotional development agree that the emotion regulation abilities of infants are based on an interaction between the infant's temperamental characteristics and environmental influences (Calkins and Leerkes, 2010, Sroufe, 1995 and Thompson, 1994). Given the bidirectional nature of parent–infant interactions, the present study also examines whether infant temperamental reactivity moderates the relation between bedtime parenting quality/parent–infant relationship and infant emotion regulation. Children who are temperamentally reactive may be more sensitive to their environment, namely parenting quality and the attachment relationship, given their greater likelihood of becoming distressed in a frustrating situation, greater dependence on external sources of regulation, and higher risk for maladjustment (Kiff et al., 2011 and Stupica et al., 2011). As stipulated by the differential susceptibility hypothesis, reactive infants may be differentially susceptible to both positive and negative parenting quality, and to both secure and insecure attachment (Ellis, Boyce, Belsky, Bakermans-Kranenburg, & van IJzendoorn, 2011). Studies have found parenting quality to more strongly predict social–emotional and behavioral outcomes for temperamentally reactive children than for less reactive children (Belsky, 2005, Belsky and Pluess, 2009 and van IJzendoorn and Bakermans-Kranenburg, 2012). Leerkes et al. (2009), for example, found that maternal sensitivity to child distress was associated with lower emotion dysregulation only for highly reactive 24-month olds. In addition, Ursache, Blair, Stifter, and Voegtline (2013) found that 15-month olds with both high emotional reactivity and high emotion regulation were the most likely to have caregivers who showed more supportive parenting. The differential susceptibility hypothesis and empirical findings suggest that high maternal emotional availability marked by sensitivity to child cues, appropriate structuring, and non-intrusive and non-hostile responses during bedtime are more likely to influence the emotion regulation abilities of highly reactive infants than those of low reactive infants. High emotional availability may predict greater use of adaptive regulatory strategies, whereas low emotional availability may predict greater use of less-adaptive regulatory strategies for highly reactive, but not low reactive, infants. Similarly, infant temperament may interact with attachment security to predict emotion regulation strategies such that highly reactive infants, compared to low reactive infants, may use more adaptive strategies when securely attached, and to use more of the less-adaptive strategies when insecurely attached. It is plausible that the relations between particular emotion regulation strategies and insecure attachment (e.g., the greater use of tension reduction behaviors in resistant infants) as found in previous studies are stronger for highly reactive infants.

4. Results 4.1. Preliminary analyses 4.1.1. Descriptives The descriptives for all predictor, moderator, and outcome variables are provided in Table 1. Zero-order correlations between all study variables (except for infant attachment classifications) are provided in Table 2. In addition, one-way ANOVAs indicated that there were significant differences between the three infant attachment classifications (secure, insecure-avoidant, insecure-resistant) in 12-month parent-rated negative affectivity, F(2, 126) = 8.95, p < .001. Tukey's post hoc comparisons indicated that insecure-resistant infants’ negative affectivity (M = 3.92, SD = .85) was rated by their parent as higher than that of insecure-avoidant (M = 2.98, SD = .63) and secure (M = 3.26, SD = .50) infants. Table 1. Descriptive statistics for maternal bedtime emotional availability, infant temperament, and infant emotion regulation strategies (n = 144). M SD SE Emotional availability 12 months 18.88 3.33 .33 18 months 18.99 3.66 .39 Infant temperamental negative affectivity 12 months 3.26 .58 .05 18 months 2.59 .52 .05 Infant emotion regulation strategies Orienting 12 months .60 .24 .02 18 months .53 .26 .02 Looks to mother 12 months .63 .22 .02 18 months .62 .22 .02 Looks to toy 12 months .36 .21 .02 18 months .46 .25 .02 Self-comforting 12 months .24 .27 .02 18 months .18 .25 .02 Avoidance 12 months .08 .12 .01 18 months .19 .22 .02 Tension reduction 12 months .11 .16 .01 18 months .08 .12 .01 Table options Table 2. Correlations between maternal emotional availability, infant temperamental negative affectivity, and emotion regulation strategies during toy removal task at 12 and 18 months (n = 144). Variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 1. Emotional availability (12 months) 1 2. Emotional availability (18 months) .43*** 1 3. Negative affectivity (12 months) −.10 −.10 1 4. Negative affectivity (18 months) −.03 −.09 .51*** 1 5. Orienting (12 months) .15 .02 −.07 −.09 1 6. Look to mom (12 months) .07 −.03 −.06 −.03 −.40*** 1 7. Look at toy (12 months) −.07 .14 −.06 .06 −.23** .13 1 8. Self-comforting (12 months) −.03 .05 −.08 .05 .05 .13 −.01 1 9. Avoidance (12 months) −.06 −.15 .07 .16 −.003 .03 .01 −.10 1 10. Tension reduction (12 months) .01 .04 .08 .01 −.12 .08 −.09 −.17* .02 1 11. Orienting (18 months) −.002 −.04 .03 −.06 .26** −.02 −.11 .04 −.11 −.06 1 12. Look to mom (18 months) −.10 −.04 .09 .07 −.30** .06 .18 −.03 −.04 .06 −.38*** 1 13. Look at toy (18 months) .05 −.07 −.08 −.01 −.04 .10 .20* .11 .02 .02 −.45*** −.10 1 14. Self-comforting (18 months) −.14 .10 −.04 .04 .003 −.06 −.04 .30** −.08 −.14 −.01 .10 −.03 1 15. Avoidance (18 months) .11 −.16 −.002 .03 .03 −.02 −.07 .003 .18* −.06 −.21* .04 .12 −.16 1 16. Tension reduction (18 months) .00 .08 −.03 −.12 −.05 .02 .07 −.10 −.03 −.07 −.10 .12 −.14 −.03 .13 1 * p < .05. ** p < .01. *** p < .001 Table options 4.1.2. Covariates Correlations between demographic variables (child gender, maternal age, maternal employment status, maternal marital status, family income, and number of children in the home) and child regulatory strategies indicated that child gender, maternal age, and family income were related to avoidance, looks to toy, and orienting: male infants (M = .23) engaged in more avoidance than female infants (M = .15) at 18 months, t(123) = 2.14, p < .05; mothers’ age was negatively correlated with avoidance at 12 months, r(138) = −.21, p < .05, and positively correlated with looks to toy at 18 month, r(124) = .32, p < .001; and family income was inversely related to orienting at 18 months, r(109) = −.21, p < .05. These demographic variables were thus included as covariates in analyses for the corresponding outcome variables. 4.2. Emotional availability as predictor of emotion regulation strategies Contrary to expectations, maternal bedtime emotional availability at 12 and 18 month did not predict infants’ emotion regulation strategies concurrently or longitudinally (all ps > .05). 4.3. Attachment security as predictor of emotion regulation strategies Infant attachment security at 12 months was expected to predict infants’ use of emotion regulation strategies at 12 and 18 months. Two significant relations were found at 12 months: a one-way ANOVA indicated that secure infants (M = .60) engaged in more orienting toward the environment than insecure-resistant infants (M = .37), t = −2.69, p < .01. Also, logistic regression analyses indicated that insecure-resistant infants had a decreased log odds of 2.30 in the use of tension reduction compared to secure infants, Wald statistic = 4.44, p < .05. That is, insecure-resistant infants were less likely to engage in tension reduction behaviors than secure infants. 4.4. Temperamental negative affectivity as moderator of the relation between emotional availability and emotion regulation strategies Infant temperamental negative affectivity as rated by the parent was expected to moderate the relations between maternal bedtime emotional availability and infant emotion regulation strategies at 12 and 18 months. Multiple regression analyses indicated that emotional availability interacted with infant negative affectivity to predict the regulatory strategy of looks to mother at both 12 months, t = −2.23, p < .05 (f2 = −.05), and 18 months, t = −2.46, p < .05 (f2 = −.07). The simple slopes when infants were low on negative affectivity (−1 SD below the mean; gradient = .02, p < .01, at 12 months; gradient = .02, p < .01, at 18 months), and when infants were high on negative affectivity (+1 SD above the mean; gradient = −.01, p < .05, at 12 months; gradient = −.02, p < .01, at 18 months) were significant (Aiken & West, 1991). As can be seen in Figure 1, for 12-month-old infants with lower negativity, the higher the emotional availability of the mother the more these infants looked to the mother. On the other hand, for infants rated as high in negative affectivity the greater the mother's emotional availability the less they looked to their mothers when frustrated. The same result emerged at 18 months. 1 As the slopes were in opposite directions, contrastive effects, and not differential susceptibility, were indicated ( Belsky, Bakermans-Kranenburg, & van IJzendoorn, 2007). Moderation of the relation between maternal bedtime emotional availability and ... Fig. 1. Moderation of the relation between maternal bedtime emotional availability and the strategy of looks to mother by infant temperamental negative affectivity at 12 months. Figure options 4.5. Temperamental negative affectivity as moderator of the relation between attachment security and emotion regulation strategies Mother-rated infant temperamental negative affectivity (at 12 months) was expected to moderate the relations between infant attachment security (at 12 months) and emotion regulation strategies at 12 and 18 months. Infant attachment security interacted with temperamental negative affectivity to predict the regulatory strategy of avoidance at 18 months. Logistic regression analyses indicated that for infants high on temperamental negative affectivity, the probability of avoidance at 18 months was higher for insecure-avoidant infants than for secure infants, Wald statistic = 5.30, p < .05 ( Figure 2). The simple slope when infants were high on negative affectivity (+1 SD above the mean) was significant, gradient = −2.18, p < .05, whereas, the simple slope when infants were low on negative affectivity (−1 SD below the mean) was not, gradient = .37, p > .05. Moderation of the relation between infant attachment security and the ... Fig. 2. Moderation of the relation between infant attachment security and the probability of avoidance by infant temperamental negative affectivity.