Individual differences in infants’ expectations and preferences for responsive vs. unresponsive parent-puppets and their associations with early maternal behavior
Year: 2025
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Infants’ mental representations of attachment are thought to develop across the first year. Due to methodological challenges, empirical attempts to assess these representations are scarce. The study presents a preliminary attempt to validate a measure of infants’ attachment representations. Seventy-two mother-infant dyads (34 girls) were assessed. At 4-months, 60 dyads were observed during free-play interactions. At 10-months, 72 infants viewed a puppet-show depicting a responsive vs. an unresponsive parent-puppet. Looking-time patterns indexed infants’ expectations, and puppet choice indexed infants’ preference for parent-puppets’ responsiveness. Infants generally expected (d = 0.42) and preferred (66%) parent-puppet-responsiveness. Moreover, maternal “responsive secure-base” behavior at 4-months was associated with infants’ expectations (r = .29, p = .025) and preference (d = 0.6) for responsiveness at 10-months. Findings support theoretical concepts, providing preliminary evidence for infants’ preverbal attachment representations and their roots in early social experience with their attachment figures. Future research using larger samples and standard attachment assessments is needed to validate this measure.
Source: Attachment & Human Development
Institutions: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Reichman University
Language: English
Subfield: Developmental and Educational Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Funder: Reichman University
OpenAlex ID: W4414523424