Hostname: page-component-f554764f5-nt87m Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-10T15:42:16.367Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Maternal responsiveness and sensitivity reconsidered: Some is more

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 November 2013

Marc H. Bornstein  and
Nanmathi Manian
Marc H. Bornstein*
Affiliation:
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
Nanmathi Manian
Affiliation:
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Marc H. Bornstein, Child and Family Research, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Suite 8030, 6705 Rockledge Drive, Bethesda, MD 20892-7971; E-mail: [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Is it always or necessarily the case that common and important parenting practices are better, insofar as they occur more often, or worse, because they occur less often? Perhaps, less is more, or some is more. To address this question, we studied mothers' microcoded contingent responsiveness to their infants (M = 5.4 months, SD = 0.2) in relation to independent global judgments of the same mothers' parenting sensitivity. In a community sample of 335 European American dyads, videorecorded infant and maternal behaviors were timed microanalytically throughout an extended home observation; separately and independently, global maternal sensitivity was rated macroanalytically. Sequential analysis and spline regression showed that, as maternal contingent responsiveness increased, judged maternal sensitivity increased to significance on the contingency continuum, after which mothers who were even more contingent were judged less sensitive. Just significant levels of maternal responsiveness are deemed optimally sensitive. Implications of these findings for typical and atypical parenting, child development, and intervention science are discussed.

Type
Regular Articles
Information
Development and Psychopathology , Volume 25 , Issue 4pt1 , November 2013 , pp. 957 - 971
Creative Commons
This is a work of the US Government and is not subject to copyright protection in the United States.
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Ainsworth, M. D. S. (1967). Infancy in Uganda: Infant care and the growth of love. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Ainsworth, M. D. S., Bell, S. M., & Stayton, D. J. (1974). Infant–mother attachment and social development. In Richards, M. P. (Ed.), The introduction of the child into a social world (pp. 99–135). London: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ainsworth, M. D. S., Blehar, M. C., Waters, E., & Wall, S. (1978). Patterns of attachment: A psychological study of the strange situation. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Anisfeld, E., Casper, V., Nozyce, M., & Cunningham, N. (1990). Does infant carrying promote attachment? An experimental study of the effects of increased physical contact on the development of attachment. Child Development, 61, 1617–1627.Google Scholar
Bakeman, R. (2004). Sequential analysis. In Lewis-Beck, M., Bryman, A. E., & Liao, T. F. (Eds.), The SAGE encyclopedia of social science research methods (Vol. 3, pp. 1024–1026). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Bakeman, R., Deckner, D. F., & Quera, V. (2005). Analysis of behavioral streams. In Teti, D. M. (Ed.), Handbook of research methods in developmental psychology (pp. 394–420). Oxford: Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bakeman, R., & Gnisci, A. (2005). Sequential observational methods. In Eid, M. & Diener, E. (Eds.), Handbook of multimethod measurement in psychology (pp. 127–140). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.Google Scholar
Bakeman, R., & Quera, V. (2004). General sequential querier: GSEQ for Windows, version 4.1.2 [Computer software]. Atlanta, GA: Georgia State University and Universidad de Barcelona.Google Scholar
Beebe, B., Jaffe, J., Buck, K., Chen, H., Cohen, P., Feldstein, S., et al. (2008). Six-week postpartum maternal depressive symptoms and 4-month mother–infant self- and interactive contingency. Infant Mental Health Journal, 29, 442–471.Google Scholar
Beebe, B., Jaffe, J., Lachmann, F., Feldstein, S., Crown, C., & Jasnow, J. (2000). Systems models in development and psychoanalysis: The case of vocal rhythm coordination and attachment. Infant Mental Health Journal, 21, 99–122.Google Scholar
Beebe, B., Jaffe, J., Markese, S., Buck, K., Chen, H., Cohen, P., et al. (2010). The origins of 12-month attachment: A microanalysis of 4-month mother–infant interaction. Attachment & Human Development, 12, 3–141.Google Scholar
Belsky, J., Rovine, M., & Taylor, D. (1984). The Pennsylvania infant and family development project: III. The origins of individual differences in infant–mother attachment: Maternal and infant contributions. Child Development, 55, 718–728.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bigelow, A. E. (1998). Infants' sensitivity to familiar imperfect contingencies in social interaction. Infant Behavior and Development, 21, 149–162.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bigelow, A. E., MacLean, B. K., & MacDonald, D. (1996). Infants' response to live and replay interactions with self and mother. Merrill–Palmer Quarterly, 42, 596–611.Google Scholar
Bigelow, A. E., & Rochat, P. (2006). Two-month-old infants' sensitivity to social contingency in mother–infant and stranger–infant interaction. Infancy, 9, 313–325.Google Scholar
Biringen, Z., & Easterbrooks, M. A. (2012). Emotional availability: Concept, research, and window on development and psychopathology. Development and Psychopathology, 24, 1–8.Google Scholar
Biringen, Z., Robinson, J. L., & Emde, R. N. (1998). The Emotional Availability Scales (3rd ed.). Fort Collins, CO: Colorado State University, Department of Human Development and Family Studies.Google Scholar
Bloom, K. (1988). Quality of adult vocalizations affects the quality of infant vocalizations. Journal of Child Language, 15, 469–480.Google Scholar
Bornstein, M. H. (2009). Toward a model of culture↔parent↔child transactions. In Sameroff, A. (Ed.), The transactional model of development: How children and contexts shape each other (pp. 139–161). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.Google Scholar
Bornstein, M. H., Azuma, H., Tamis-LeMonda, C. S., & Ogino, M. (1990). Mother and infant activity and interaction in Japan and in the United States: I. A comparative macroanalysis of naturalistic exchanges. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 13, 267–287.Google Scholar
Bornstein, M. H., Hahn, C.-S., Suwalsky, J. T. D., & Haynes, O. M. (2003). Socioeconomic status, parenting, and child development: The Hollingshead Four-Factor Index of Social Status and the Socioeconomic Index of Occupations. In Bornstein, M. H. & Bradley, R. H. (Eds.), Monographs in parenting series: Socioeconomic status, parenting, and child development (pp. 29–82). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Bornstein, M. H., Suwalsky, J. T. D., & Breakstone, D. A. (2012). Emotional relationships between mother and infants: Knowns, unknowns, and unknown unknowns. Development and Psychopathology, 24, 137–142.Google Scholar
Bornstein, M. H., & Tamis-LeMonda, C. S. (1990). Activities and interactions of mothers and their firstborn infants in the first six months of life: Covariation, stability, continuity, correspondence, and prediction. Child Development, 61, 1206–1217.Google Scholar
Bornstein, M. H., Tamis-LeMonda, C. S., Hahn, C.-S., & Haynes, O. M. (2008). Maternal responsiveness to very young children at three ages: Longitudinal analysis of a multidimensional modular and specific parenting construct. Developmental Psychology, 44, 867–874.Google Scholar
Bornstein, M. H., Tamis-LeMonda, C. S., & Haynes, O. M. (1999). First words in the second year: Continuity, stability, and models of concurrent and predictive correspondence in vocabulary and verbal responsiveness across age and context. Infant Behavior and Development, 22, 65–85.Google Scholar
Bornstein, M. H., Toda, S., Azuma, H., Tamis-LeMonda, C. S., & Ogino, M. (1990). Mother and infant activity and interaction in Japan and in the United States: II. A comparative microanalysis of naturalistic exchanges focused on the organization of infant attention. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 13, 289–308.Google Scholar
Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment and loss: Vol. 1. Attachment. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Bus, A. G., & van IJzendoorn, M. H. (1992). Patterns of attachment in frequently and infrequently reading mother–child dyads. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 153, 395–403.Google Scholar
Canfield, R. L., & Haith, M. M. (1991). Young infants' visual expectations for symmetric and asymmetric stimulus sequences. Developmental Psychology, 27, 198–208.Google Scholar
Chapple, E. (1970). Culture and biological man. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.Google Scholar
Cicchetti, D., & Pogge-Hesse, P. (1982). Possible contributions of the study of organically retarded persons to developmental theory. In Zigler, E. & Balla, D. (Eds.), Mental retardation: The developmental-difference controversy (pp. 277–318). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Cicchetti, D., & Toth, S. L. (2009). The past achievements and future promises of developmental psychopathology: The coming of age of a discipline. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 50, 16–25.Google Scholar
Cicchetti, D., & Tucker, D. (1994). Development and self-regulatory structures of the mind. Development and Psychopathology, 6, 533–549.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cleveland, W. S. (1979). Robust locally weighted regression and smoothing scatterplots. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 74, 829–836.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohn, J., & Elmore, M. (1988). Effect of contingent changes in mothers' affective expression on the organization of behavior in 3-month-old infants. Infant Behavior and Development, 11, 493–505.Google Scholar
Cohn, J. F., & Tronick, E. (1989). Specificity of infants' response to mothers' affective behavior. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 28, 242–248.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cooper, P., Tomlinson, M., Swartz, L., Woolgar, M., & Murray, L. (1999). Post-partum depression and the mother–infant relationship in a South African peri-urban settlement. British Journal of Psychiatry, 175, 554–558.Google Scholar
Cote, L. R., Bornstein, M. H., Haynes, O. M., & Bakeman, R. (2008). Mother–infant person- and object-directed interactions in Latino immigrant families: A comparative approach. Infancy, 13, 338–365.Google Scholar
Damast, A. M., Tamis-LeMonda, C. S., & Bornstein, M. H. (1996). Mother–child play: Sequential interactions and the relation between maternal beliefs and behaviors. Child Development, 67, 1752–1766.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
De Wolff, M. S., & van IJzendoorn, M. H. (1997). Sensitivity and attachment: A meta-analysis on parental antecedents of infant attachment. Child Development, 68, 571–591.Google Scholar
Dickie, J. R., & Gerber, S.C. (1980). Training in social competence: The effect on mothers, fathers, and infants. Child Development, 51, 1248–1251.Google Scholar
Drillien, C. M. (1957). The social and economic factors affecting the incidence of premature birth: I. Premature births without complications of pregnancy. Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology of the British Empire, 64, 161–184.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dunham, P., & Dunham, F. (1994). Optimal social structures and adaptive infant development. In Moore, C. & Dunham, P. (Eds.), Joint attention: Its origins and role in development (pp. 159–188). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Feldman, R. (2003). Infant–mother and infant–father synchrony: The coregulation of positive arousal. Infant Mental Health Journal, 24, 1–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gardner, J. M., Walker, S. P., Powell, C. A., & Grantham-McGregor, S. (2003). A randomized controlled trial of a home-visiting intervention on cognition and behaviour in low birth weight infants. Journal of Pediatrics, 143, 634–639.Google Scholar
Geeraert, L., Van den Noortgate, W., Grietens, H., & Onghena, P. (2004). The effects of early prevention programs for families with young children at risk for physical child abuse and neglect: A meta-analysis. Child Maltreatment, 9, 277–291.Google Scholar
Gergely, G. (2003). The development of understanding self and agency. In Goswami, U. (Ed.), Blackwell's handbook of child cognitive development (pp. 26–46). Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Gergely, G., & Watson, J. (1996). The social biofeedback model of parental affect-mirroring: The development of emotional self-awareness and self-control in infancy. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 77, 1181–1212.Google Scholar
Gergely, G., & Watson, J. (1999). Early socio-emotional development: Contingency perception and the social–biofeedback model. In Rochat, P. (Ed.), Early social cognition (pp. 101–136). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Gewirtz, J. L., & Palàez-Nogueras, M. (1992). B. F. Skinner's legacy to human infant behavior and development. American Psychologist, 47, 1411–1422.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldstein, M. H., Schwade, J. A., & Bornstein, M. H. (2009). The value of vocalizing: Five-month-old infants associate their own noncry vocalizations with responses from caregivers. Child Development, 80, 636–644.Google Scholar
Graham, S. (1992). Most of the subjects were white and middle class: Trends in published research on African Americans in selected APA Journals, 1970–1989. American Psychologist, 47, 629–639.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gratier, M. (2003). Expressive timing and interactional synchrony between mothers and infants: Cultural similarities, cultural differences, and the immigration experience. Cognitive Development, 18, 533–554.Google Scholar
Gros-Louis, J., West, M. J., Goldstein, M. H., & King, A. P. (2006). Mothers provide differential feedback to infants' prelinguistic sounds. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 30, 509–516.Google Scholar
Hane, A., Feldstein, S., & Dernetz, V. (2003). The relation between coordinated interpersonal timing and maternal sensitivity in four-month-old infants. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 32, 525–539.Google Scholar
Henry, J. P., & Wang, S. (1998). Effects of early stress on adult affiliative behavior. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 23, 863–875.Google Scholar
Holden, G. W. (2010). Parenting: A dynamic perspective. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Hollingshead, A. B. (1975). The Four Factor Index of Social Status. Unpublished manuscript, Yale University, Department of Sociology. Retrieved from http://www.yale-university.com/sociology/faculty/docs/hollingshead_socStat4factor.pdfGoogle Scholar
Hsu, H.-C., & Lavelli, M. (2005). Perceived and observed parenting behavior in American and Italian first-time mothers across the first 3 months. Infant Behavior and Development, 28, 503–518.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Humes, K. R., Jones, N. A., & Ramirez, R. R. (2011). Overview of race and Hispanic origin: 2010. In US Census Bureau, 2010 Census Briefs (pp. 1–24). Retrieved from http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-02.pdfGoogle Scholar
Isabella, R. A., & Belsky, J. (1991). Interactional synchrony and the origins of infant–mother attachment: A replication study. Child Development, 62, 373–384.Google Scholar
Isabella, R. A., Belsky, J., & von Eye, A. (1989). Origins of infant–mother attachment: An examination of interactional synchrony during the infant's first year. Developmental Psychology, 25, 12–21.Google Scholar
Isley, S., O'Neil, R., & Parke, R. D. (1996). The relation of parental affect and control behaviors to children's classroom acceptance: A concurrent and predictive analysis. Early Education and Development, 7, 7–23.Google Scholar
Jaffe, J., Beebe, B., Feldstein, S., Crown, C., & Jasnow, M. (2001). Rhythms of dialogue in infancy: Co-ordinated timing in development. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 66, vi–131.Google Scholar
Jameson, P. B., Gelfand, D. M., Kulcsar, E., & Teti, D. M. (1997). Mother–toddler interaction patterns associated with maternal depression. Development and Psychology, 9, 537–550.Google Scholar
Kaitz, M., & Maytal, H. (2005). Interactions between anxious mothers and their infants: An integration of theory and research findings. Infant Mental Health, 26, 570–597.Google Scholar
Kaminski, J. W., Vallew, L. A., Filene, J. H., & Boyle, C. L. (2008). A meta-analytic review of components associated with Parent Training program effectiveness. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 36, 567–589.Google Scholar
Keller, H., Lohaus, A., Völker, S., Cappenberg, M., & Chasiotis, A. (1999). Temporal contingency as an independent component of parenting behavior. Child Development, 70, 474–485.Google Scholar
Kendrick, D., Elkan, R., Hewitt, M., Dewey, M., Blair, M., Robinson, J., et al. (2000). Does home visiting improve parenting and the quality of the home environment? A systematic review and meta-analysis. Archives of Disease in Childhood, 82, 443–451.Google Scholar
Kogan, N., & Carter, A. S. (1996). Mother–infant reengagement following the still-face: The role of maternal emotional availability in infant affect regulation. Infant Behavior and Development, 1996, 359–370.Google Scholar
Leerkes, E. M., & Crockenberg, S. C. (2002). The development of maternal self-efficacy and its impact on maternal behavior. Infancy, 3, 227–247.Google Scholar
Lewis, M., & Feiring, C. (1989). Infant, mother and mother–infant interaction behavior and subsequent attachment. Child Development, 60, 831–837.Google Scholar
Leyendecker, B., Lamb, M., Fracasso, M., Scholmerich, A., & Larson, D. (1997). Playful interaction and the antecedents of attachment: A longitudinal study of Central American and Euro-American mothers and infants. Merrill–Palmer Quarterly, 43, 24–47.Google Scholar
Lohaus, A., Keller, H., Ball, J., Elben, C., & Völker, S. (2001). Maternal sensitivity: Components and relations to warmth and contingency. Parenting, 1, 267–284.Google Scholar
Lundahl, B., Risser, H. J., & Lovejoy, M. C. (2006). A meta-analysis of parent training: Moderators and follow-up effects. Clinical Psychology Review, 26, 86–104.Google Scholar
MacDonald, K. (1992). Warmth as a developmental construct: An evolutionary analysis. Child Development, 63, 753–773.Google Scholar
Mahoney, G., & Powell, A. (1988). Modifying parent–child interaction: Enhancing the development of handicapped children. Journal of Special Education, 22, 82–96.Google Scholar
Malatesta, C. Z., Culver, C., Tesman, J. R., & Shepard, B. (1989). The development of emotion expression in the first two years of life. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 54(1–2), 1–104.Google Scholar
Markova, G., & Legerstee, M. (2006). Contingency, imitation, and affect sharing: Foundations of infants' social awareness. Developmental Psychology, 42, 132–141.Google Scholar
Marsh, L. C., & Cormier, D. R. (2002). Spline regression models. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Martin, J. A. (1989). Personal and interpersonal components of responsiveness. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 43, 5–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCune-Nicolich, L., & Fenson, L. (1984). Methodological issues in studying early pretend play. In Yawkey, T. D. & Pelligrini, A. D. (Eds.), Child's play: Developmental and applied (pp. 81–124). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Millar, W. S., & Weir, C. G. (1992). Relations between habituation and contingency learning in 5- to 12-month-old infants. Cahiers de Psychologie Cognitive/Current Psychology of Cognition, 12, 209–222.Google Scholar
Moore, G. A., Hill-Soderlund, A. L., Propper, C. B., Calkins, S. D., Mills-Koonce, W. R., & Cox, M. J. (2009). Mother–infant vagal regulation in the face-to-face still-face paradigm is moderated by maternal sensitivity. Child Development, 80, 209–223.Google Scholar
Murray, L., & Cooper, P. J. (Eds.) (1997). Postpartum depression and child development. New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Murray, L., & Trevarthen, C. (1985). Emotional regulation of interaction between two-month-olds and their mothers. In Field, T. & Fox, N. (Eds.), Social perception in infants (pp. 101–125). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
Nadel, J., Carchon, I., Kervella, C., Marcelli, D., & Réserbat-Plantey, D. (1999). Expectancies for social contingency in 2-month-olds. Developmental Science, 2, 164–173.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parke, R. D. (2000). Beyond white and middle class: Cultural variations in families—Assessments, processes, and policies. Journal of Family Psychology, 14, 331–333.Google Scholar
Pelto, G. H., Dickin, K., & Engle, P. L. (1999). A critical link: Interventions for physical growth and psychological development. Nutritional Anthropology, 2, 21–27.Google Scholar
Pettit, G. S., & Bates, J. E. (1989). Family interaction patterns and children's behavior problems from infancy to 4 years. Developmental Psychology, 25, 413–420.Google Scholar
Reck, C., Noe, D., Stefenelli, U., Fuchs, T., Cenciotti, F., Stehle, E., et al. (2011). Interactive coordination of currently depressed inpatient mothers and their infants during the postpartum period. Infant Mental Health Journal, 32, 542–562.Google Scholar
Reddy, V., Chisholm, V., Forrester, D., Conforti, M., & Maniatopoulou, D. (2007). Facing the perfect contingency: Interactions with the self at 2 and 3 months. Infant Behavior and Development, 30, 195–212.Google Scholar
Ricksen-Walraven, J. M. (1979). Effects of caregiver behavior on habituation rate and self-efficacy in infants. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 1, 105–130.Google Scholar
Robinson, J., Little, C., & Biringen, Z. (1993). Emotional communication in mother–toddler relationships: Evidence for early gender differentiation. Merrill–Palmer Quarterly, 39, 496–517.Google Scholar
Roe, K. V., Roe, A., Drivas, A., & Bronstein, R. (2006). A curvilinear relationship between maternal vocal stimulation and three-month-olds' cognitive processing: A cross-cultural phenomenon. Infant Mental Health Journal, 11, 175–189.Google Scholar
Rovee-Collier, C. (1987). Learning and memory in infancy. In Osofsky, J. D. (Ed.), Handbook of infant development (pp. 98–148). New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Sander, L. W. (1995). Identity and the experience of specificity in a process of recognition: Commentary on Seligman and Shanok. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 5, 579–593.Google Scholar
Shaw, D. S., Keenan, K., & Vondra, J. I. (1994). Developmental precursors of externalizing behavior: Ages 1 to 3. Developmental Psychology, 30, 355–364.Google Scholar
Shrout, P. E., & Fleiss, J. L. (1979). Intraclass correlations: Uses in assessing raters reliability. Psychological Bulletin, 86, 420–428.Google Scholar
Speitz, A., Johnson-Crowley, N., Sumner, G., & Barnard, K. (1990). Keys to caregiving manual. Seattle, WA: NCAST Publications.Google Scholar
Stern, D. N. (1985). The interpersonal world of the infant: A view from psychoanalysis and development psychology. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Tarabulsy, G., Tessier, R., & Kappas, A. (1996). Contingency detection and the contingent organization of behavior interactions: Implications for socioemotional development in infancy. Psychological Bulletin, 120, 25–41.Google Scholar
Tilton-Weaver, L. C., & Kakihara, F. (2008). United States of America. In Arnett, J. J. (Ed.), International encyclopedia of adolescence (Vol. 1, pp. 1061–1076). New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Tobias, K. (1995). The relation between maternal attachment and patterns of mother–infant interaction at four months. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, City University of New York.Google Scholar
Tomlinson, M., & Swartz, L. (2003). Imbalances in the knowledge about infancy: The divide between rich and poor countries. Infant Mental Health Journal, 24, 547–556.Google Scholar
Tronick, E., Als, H., Adamson, L., Wise, S., & Brazelton, T. B. (1978). The infant's response to entrapment between contradictory messages in face-to-face interaction. Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry, 17, 1–13.Google Scholar
Tronick, E., & Reck, C. (2009). Infants of depressed mothers. Harvard Review of Psychiatry, 17, 147–156.Google Scholar
Tronick, E. Z. (2003). “Of course all relationships are unique”: How co-creative processes generate unique mother–infant and patient–therapist relationships and change other relationships. Psychological Inquiry, 23, 473–491.Google Scholar
Tronick, E. Z. (2007). The neurobehavioral and social–emotional development of infants and children. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Tronick, E. Z., & Cohn, J. F. (1989). Infant–mother face-to-face interaction: Age and gender differences in coordination and the occurrence of miscoordination. Child Development, 60, 85–92.Google Scholar
US Census Bureau. (2008). 2008 American community survey. Retrieved from www.factfinder.census.govGoogle Scholar
van den Boom, D. C. (1994). The influence of temperament and mothering on attachment and exploration: An experimental manipulation of sensitive responsiveness among lower class mothers with irritable infants. Child Development, 65, 1457–1477.Google Scholar
Van Egeren, L. A., Barratt, M. S., & Roach, M. A. (2001). Mother–infant responsiveness: Timing, mutual regulation, and interactional context. Developmental Psychology, 37, 684–697.Google Scholar
van IJzendoorn, M. H., Dijkstra, J., & Bus, A. G. (1995). Attachment, intelligence, and language: A meta-analysis. Social Development, 4, 115–128.Google Scholar
van IJzendoorn, M. H., & Hubbard, F. O. A. (2000). Are infant crying and maternal responsiveness during the first year related to infant–mother attachment at 15 months? Attachment and Human Development, 2, 371–391.Google Scholar
van IJzendoorn, M. H., Juffer, F., & Duyvesteyn, M. G. C. (1995). Breaking the intergenerational cycle of insecure attachment: A review of the effects of attachment-based interventions on maternal sensitivity and infant security. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 36, 225–248.Google Scholar
Vibbert, M., & Bornstein, M. H. (1989). Specific associations between domains of mother–child interaction and toddler referential language and pretense play. Infant Behavior and Development, 12, 163–184.Google Scholar
Völker, S., Keller, H., Lohaus, A., Cappenberg, M., & Chasiotis, A. (1999). Maternal interactive behavior in early infancy and later attachment. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 23, 921–936.Google Scholar
Wakschlag, L. S., & Hans, S. L. (1999). Relation of maternal responsiveness during infancy to the development of behavior problems in high-risk youths. Developmental Psychology, 35, 569–579.Google Scholar
Wang, S. (1997). Traumatic stress and attachment. Acta Physiologica Scandinavica, 161, 164–169.Google Scholar
Warner, R. (1992). Cyclicity of vocal activity increases during conversation: Support for a nonlinear systems model of dyadic social interaction. Behavioral Science, 37, 128–138.Google Scholar
Watson, J. S. (1979). Perception of contingency as a determinant of social responsiveness. In Thoman, E. (Ed.), The origins of social responsiveness. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Watson, J. S. (1985). Contingency perception in early social development. In Field, T. M. & Fox, N. A. (Eds.), Social perception in infants (pp. 157–176). Norwood, NJ: Albex.Google Scholar
Watson, J. S., & Ramey, C. T. (1972). Reactions to response-contingent stimulation in early infancy. Merrill–Palmer Quarterly, 18, 219–227.Google Scholar
Wickens, T. D. (1993). Analysis of contingency tables with between-subjects variability. Psychological Bulletin, 113, 191–204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yerkes, R. M., & Dodson, J. D. (1908). The relation of strength of stimulus to rapidity of habit-formation. Journal of Comparative Neurology and Psychology, 18, 459–482.Google Scholar