Beyond the Words: Comparing Interpersonal Engagement Between Maternal and Paternal Infant-Directed Speech Acts
Theano Kokkinaki1, Vassilis G S Vasdekis2
1Laboratory of Applied Psychology, Department of Psychology, University of Crete, Rethymnon, Greece.
Frontiers in Psychology
|December 21, 2020
Summary
Infants show similar emotional engagement with mothers and fathers during early communication. While emotional coordination develops similarly, fathers exhibit a steeper trajectory in emotional non-coordination with age.
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Infant-Mother Interaction
- Infant-Father Interaction
- Intersubjectivity Theory
Background:
- Understanding early emotional expression in infants is crucial for developmental psychology.
- Parental interactions, both maternal and paternal, significantly shape infant emotional development.
- Theories of intersubjectivity provide a framework for examining shared emotional understanding.
Purpose of the Study:
- To compare interpersonal engagement in infant-mother and infant-father interactions.
- To investigate how infants express emotions in response to maternal and paternal questions and requests.
- To analyze developmental trajectories of emotional coordination and non-coordination in early infancy.
Main Methods:
- Video-recorded spontaneous communication between 11 infant-mother and 11 infant-father dyads.
- Study duration: from the 2nd to the 6th month of infant age.
- Analysis focused on interpersonal engagement during parental questions and direct requests.
Main Results:
- Preverbal infants exhibit similar emotional expressions and sensitivity in interactions with both mothers and fathers.
- Developmental trajectories of face-to-face emotional coordination are comparable between mothers and fathers.
- Fathers show a steeper developmental trend in emotional non-coordination compared to mothers.
Conclusions:
- Infants demonstrate consistent emotional expressiveness across both maternal and paternal interactions.
- Early emotional coordination with parents follows similar developmental paths regardless of parental gender.
- Differential trajectories in emotional non-coordination suggest unique aspects of father-infant interaction development.
Keywords:
direct requestsemotionsfacial expressionsinfancyinnate intersubjectivityinterpersonal engagementquestionsMore Related Videos
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