Abstract
This longitudinal study investigated the associations between mother-infant interaction characteristics at 9 months of age, maternal mental health, infant temperament in the first year postpartum, and child behaviour at 3 years of age. The infants (N = 54, 22 females) mainly had White British ethnic backgrounds (85.7%). Results showed that i) mother-infant dyadic affective mutuality positively correlated with infant falling reactivity, suggesting that better infant regulatory skills are associated with the dyad’s ability to share and understand each other’s emotions; and ii) maternal respect for infant autonomy predicted fewer child peer problems at 3 years of age, suggesting that maternal respect for the validity of the infant’s individuality promotes better social and emotional development in early childhood.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | e0302661 |
| Number of pages | 18 |
| Journal | PLoS ONE |
| Volume | 19 |
| Issue number | 6 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 4 Jun 2024 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2024 Rigato et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Structured keywords
- Mind and Brain (Psychological Science)