Symposia
Parenting / Families
Lindsey M. Green, B.S. (she/her/hers)
University of Washington, Seattle
Seattle, Washington
Stephanie Thompson, Ph.D. (she/her/hers)
Research Scientitst
University of Washington
Seattle, Washington
Lisa Shimomaeda, M.S. (she/her/hers)
Student
University of Washington
Seattle, Washington
Liliana J. Lengua, Ph.D. (she/her/hers)
Professor
University of Washington, Seattle
Seattle, Washington
Positive emotionality is a temperamental dimension characterized by positive affect and sensitivities to reward and pleasure. Positive emotionality is associated with better executive control, and it is a predictor of adaptive socioemotional development more broadly in childhood. Eisenberg et al.’s (1998) model of emotion socialization suggests that caregivers’ emotion expressions can serve to model and encourage emotional responses in their children. Maternal warmth, operationalized as a composite of maternal positive affect and interactiveness with infant, may be particularly important in supporting the development of children’s positive emotionality and self-regulation. The current study examines the associations of observed maternal warmth and infant positive affect with infant’s subsequent temperamental positive affect, reward orientation, and effortful control. Participants are from a sample of first-time mothers living in low-income contexts who completed a play observation with their infants (N = 141) at 4-6 months post-partum. At 4-6 and 10-12 months, mothers reported on infants’ temperament via the Infant Behavior Questionnaire – Very Short From. Multiple regression models examined the unique and interactive effects of observed maternal warmth and infant positive affect at 4-6 months on subsequent rank-order changes in parent report of infant’s (1) positive affectivity, (2) reward orientation, and (3) effortful control at 10-12 months.
Mothers’ reports of infant positive affect at 4-6 months moderately predicted mothers’ reports of positive affect, reward orientation, and effortful control at 10-12 months. Observed maternal warmth during play at 4-6 months was positively associated with positive affectivity at 10-12 months (β = 0.21, t = 2.71, p = .008). Maternal warmth at 4-6 months was not associated with subsequent reports of infant effortful control or impulsivity, although the association with impulsivity was trending towards significance (β = 0.17, t = 2.03, p = .058). No main effects of infant positive affect, nor interaction effects, were detected.
Results suggest that maternal warmth facilitates infant’s development of positive emotionality. Given that early positive affect may be a basis for both later positive emotionality and self-regulation, and consequently better social-emotional adjustment in young children, supporting maternal warmth may be a target for early parenting interventions.