In this study, relations between emotional resonance responses to another's distress, emotion regulation, and self-other discrimination were investigated in infants three-, six-, and nine-months-old. We measured the emotional reactions to the pain cry of a peer, along with the ability to regulate emotions and to discriminate between self and other…

To learn from conspecifics, infants would be greatly advantaged by knowing when to seek information from them. Although in prior work infants used a labeler's gaze direction to infer the referent of a novel label, it was unclear whether infants in these studies recognized that they needed information or were happening upon the information by…

Consistent with Biological Sensitivity to Context and Differential Susceptibility hypotheses, this study found that children who, as infants, were more temperamentally reactive were more sensitive to the quality of childcare they experienced as toddlers, but not to the amount of childcare with peers they had experienced since birth. Children with…

We investigated infants' response to pedagogy in the domain of tool use. In experiment 1, infants viewed a causally relevant tool-use demonstration presented identically in either a social/pedagogical or social/non-pedagogical context. Infants exposed to pedagogical cues displayed superior production of the tool-use sequence. This was so despite…

Parents' socialization goals are important for cultural transmission across generations, but whether such goals vary by ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds and change over children's first years of life remains unexamined. In Study 1, African-American, Dominican immigrant, and Mexican immigrant mothers (N = 300) reported on the qualities deemed…

The present study examined the influence of children's experiences during non-maternal childcare on their behavior toward unfamiliar peers. Participants included children classified as negatively reactive at four months of age (N = 52) and children not negatively reactive (N = 61), who were further divided into those who experienced non-maternal…

The goals of this article were to examine (1) the relative and absolute stability of maternal autonomy support between infancy and preschool age, and (2) the moderating role of child gender, maternal attachment state of mind, and stressful life events. Sixty-nine mother-child dyads participated in five visits when the child was 8, 15, and 18…

Although security of attachment is conceptualised as a balance between infants' attachment and exploratory behaviours, parental behaviours pertaining to infant exploration have received relatively little empirical attention. Drawing from self-determination theory, this study seeks to improve the prediction of infant attachment by assessing…

Peer interaction is an important component of children's social repertoires that is associated with a variety of developmental outcomes and life skills. The present study provides an in-depth study of early dyadic peer behaviors during the infancy period, during which social competence with peers is first being developed. Results from…

Longitudinal pathways between maternal mental health in infancy and offspring romantic relationship outcomes in adulthood were examined using a 30-year prospective longitudinal study of 196 mothers and their children. Structural equation modeling revealed that maternal mental health at 30 months was related to offspring relationship status and…

Fifty-nine healthy infants were filmed with their mothers and with a researcher at two, four, six and nine months in face-to-face play, and in toy-play at six and nine months. During toy-play at both ages, two indices of joint attention (JA)--infant bids for attention, and percent of time in shared attention--were assessed, along with other…

This article reports the results of two experiments studying the effects of type of interaction on infant production of declarative pointing. In Experiment 1, intensity of social presence was manipulated in adult-infant interaction with 12-19-month-olds (no social presence; adult responding only; adult also initiating joint attentional bids).…

Children with behavioral inhibition, a temperamental style characterized by infant distress to novelty and childhood social reticence, exhibit both continuity and discontinuity of this behavioral trait over the course of development. However, few researchers have identified factors that might be responsible for these different patterns. In the…

The purpose of this study was to examine 32 mothers' sensitivity to social contingency during face-to-face interaction with their two- to four-month-old infants in a closed circuit TV set-up. Prosodic qualities and vocal sounds in mother's infant-directed (ID) speech during sequences of live interaction were compared to sequences where expressive…

Eighty-three low-income Mexican-heritage children (44 girls) and their mothers participated in this research. Children were observed with alternative caregivers at 14, 24, and 36 months of age using the Attachment Q-Set. Most children received regular care from infancy through preschool from relatives and childcare providers. Children had high…