Infant emotion regulation: Relations to bedtime emotional availability, attachment security, and temperament

Bo Ram Kim, Cynthia A. Stifter, Lauren E. Philbrook, Douglas M. Teti

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

31 Scopus citations

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.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)480-490
Number of pages11
JournalInfant Behavior and Development
Volume37
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 2014

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Developmental and Educational Psychology

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