159 Exploring Associations Between Maternal Sensitivity and Infant Attachment Behaviors

Infant temperament, brain development, sense of trust, and resiliency may be influenced by the connection and bond formed between infants and their caregivers. The quality of attachment between a mother and her infant is often crucial for effectively supporting the development of neural connections and resiliency in the child. There is a range of evidence indicating how intergenerational factors can be linked to the development of either adaptive or maladaptive coping mechanisms as a child. Therefore, it is important to further examine what maternal behaviors, if any, make some children more vulnerable than others to developing risk for psychopathology. This research investigated the roles of maternal history of parental bonding and maternal sensitivity as predictors of insecure infant attachment behaviors.

The study addressed four research questions: First, is a mother’s own history of being parented related to her child’s avoidant and resistant behaviors at 7 months? Specifically, we hypothesize that the more overprotection a mother received from her parents, the more avoidant and resistant her infant will be. Contrastingly, we hypothesize that the more received care will correspond with less avoidant and resistant attachment behaviors in her child. Second, is a mother’s history of parental bonding associated with maternal sensitivity during interactions with her own infant? Third, is maternal sensitivity associated with the infant’s attachment behaviors? Lastly, does maternal sensitivity mediate the associations between parental bonding history and infant attachment behaviors in the next generation?

In this longitudinal study through the Child Adaptation and Neurodevelopment Lab at the University of Utah, these research questions were addressed by collecting data from 162 mothers and their 7-month-old infants. To be eligible for this study, mothers needed to be 18-40 years of age and at least 26 weeks gestation. Researchers rated maternal sensitivity, labeled as accepting or rejecting behaviors, in response to their infant’s distress and non-distress- cues using global ratings of mother-infant interactions. These interactions were observed and measured in a laboratory setting during the play and reunion episodes of the Still Face Paradigm (SFP), a well-validated experiment for assessing infant response to attachment-related stress. Mothers also completed the Parental Bonding Instrument (PBI), a self- report questionnaire that provides information about adults’ retrospective reports of the parental care and overprotection they experienced as children. Implications of this research are vast. By studying the potential influence of intergenerational maternal sensitivity on child attachment behavior, finding ways to reduce poor developmental outcomes may become clearer. A primary limitation of this study is that the maternal rejection coding schemes may not have accurately measured how sensitivity behaviors differ across cultures. Future research should accurately assess the cultural nuances of maternal rejection behaviors using coding schemes that are more culturally competent.