Developmental theories suggest affect-biased attention, preferential attention to emotionally salient stimuli, emerges during infancy through coordinating individual differences. Here we examined bidirectional relations between infant affect-biased attention, temperamental negative affect, and maternal anxiety symptoms using a Random Intercepts…

The current study examined the relations between individual differences in attention to emotion faces and temperamental negative affect across the first 2 years of life. Infant studies have noted a normative pattern of preferential attention to salient cues, particularly angry faces. A parallel literature suggests that elevated attention bias to…

The present study examines the relationship between sex, infant temperament, and childhood psychophysiological reactivity via electrodermal activity (EDA). Both temperament and EDA are known to be relatively stable traits across the lifespan reflecting individual reactivity and regulation linked to suboptimal behavioral development and risk for…

This research examined the child, parent, and family conditions under which attachment disorganization was related to both level and change in externalizing behavior during preschool among a community sample. Using the ordinary least squares regression, we found that attachment disorganization at 12 months significantly predicted children's…

This study investigated the normative use and developmental course of physical aggression (PA), defined as use of physical force such as hitting, biting, and kicking, from 8 to 26 months and predictors thereof. We used data from the Behavior Outlook Norwegian Developmental Study, comprising 1,159 children (559 girls and 600 boys). Both mothers and…

Infants and their mothers participated in a longitudinal study of the sequelae of infant goal-blockage responses. Four-month-old infants participated in a standard contingency learning and goal-blockage procedure during which anger and sad facial expressions to the blockage were coded. When infants were 12 and 20 months old, mothers completed a…

Infants' preference for faces was investigated in a cross-sectional sample of 75 children, aged 3 to 11 months, and 23 adults. A visual preference paradigm was used where pairs of faces and toys were presented side-by-side while eye gaze was recorded. In addition, motor activity was assessed via parent report and the relation between motor…

Clinically meaningful behavior problems are thought to be present beginning in the early toddler years, yet few studies have investigated correlates of behavior problems assessed before age 2 years. The current study investigated the direct and interactive contributions of early infant and caregiver characteristics thought to play an important…

We evaluated the extent to which the externalizing behavior construct is self-organizing in the first 2 years of life. Based on dynamic systems theory, we hypothesized that changes in physical aggression, defiance, activity level, and distress to limitations would each be predicted by earlier manifestations of one another. These hypotheses were…

Background: Developing control of attention helps infants to regulate their emotions, and individual differences in attention skills may shape how infants perceive and respond to their socio-emotional environments. This study examined whether the temperamental dimensions of self-regulation and negative emotionality relate to infants' attention…

Through her theoretical and empirical work, Mary Rothbart has had a profound impact on the scientific understanding of infant and child temperament. This special issue honors her contributions through the presentations of original, contemporary studies relevant to three primary themes in Rothbart's conceptual approach: the expansive scope and…

The present study addresses cross-cultural differences between infants born to families of Russian immigrants in USA and Israel, as well as Russian families residing in Russia, with the emphasis on evaluating the impact of immigration and acculturation. Community samples of primary caregivers of infants between 3 and 12 months of age were…

Predictors of prenatal and postnatal parenting efficacy were examined in a sample of 115 primiparous mothers and 73 fathers in an effort to examine the association between preexisting parental characteristics and prenatal efficacy and the association between prenatal characteristics and postnatal efficacy when aspects of the current parenting…