Mother-infant interaction at home and in the laboratory: a comparative study

On the basis of recent questioning of the generalizability of laboratory data, mother-infant interaction was examined at home and in the laboratory to determine if behavior observed under free-play conditions in the laboratory is representative of that observed at home under naturalistic conditions--as it is commonly assumed to be. Twenty-four 12-month-olds and their mothers were observed for 30 minutes on two occasions a week apart. Half of the mother-infant pairs were seen twice at home under naturalistic conditions or twice in the laboratory in a free-play situation. The remaining 12 pairs were seen once in each location (order counterbalanced). General level of maternal functioning, but not of infant functioning, was greatly affected by context; mothers attended to, talked to, responded to, and stimulated their children more frequently in the lab than at home. In addition, individual differences in maternal behavior were found to be more stable when mothers were seen twice in the same context (home or lab) than when seen once in each locale. These results led to the conclusion that cross-contextual generalizations, especially from the lab to the field, are unwarranted unless across-setting consistently can be empirically documented.