THE MOTHER-INFANT RELATIONSHIP AS A CO-REGULATORY SYSTEM

拟议的研究有两个主要目标。 首先，一个实验部分将检查母婴二人组（3个半月大的婴儿）是否在增加身体接触量的三种条件下在面对面互动中表现出改善的协同调节（持续的相互协调），即，不碰，只碰，抱着。 其次，纵向分量将检查是否在3 1/2个月的共同调节预测婴儿的情绪调节和母婴关系质量在8 1/2个月。 包括几个功能，以加强对正在进行的过程中的二元体的知识，如自然的家访，双周婴儿日记（评估变量，如在身体接触，烦躁，和其他照顾者花费的时间），和母亲的压力，社会支持和满意度的措施养育。这项工作可能对理解早期社会情感发展的关键过程产生影响。 实验部分评估身体接触是否不仅可以调节婴儿的痛苦，还可以促进母亲和婴儿之间的协调和相互反应。 纵向分量提供了一个检查的发展进程，从最初的相互控制，自我导向的调节，以及评估早期的共同调节作为一个窗口到“附件在制作”阶段-一个相对被忽视的时期的关系形成的实证依恋文献，因为出现的措施是无效的，直到一个理论上稳定的依恋表征存在。

The proposed research has two major goals. First, an experimental component will examine whether mother-infant dyads (3 1/2 month-old infants) display improved co-regulation (continuous mutual coordination) in face-to-face interactions across three conditions that increase the amount of physical contact, i.e., no touch, touch only, and holding. Second, a longitudinal component will examine whether co-regulation at 3 1/2 months predicts infant emotion regulation and mother-infant relationship quality at 8 1/2 months. Several features areincluded to bolster knowledge about ongoing processes in the dyad such as naturalistic home visits, bi-weekly infant diaries (assessing variables such as time spent in physical contact, fussiness, and time spent with other caregivers), and measures of maternal stress, social support, and satisfaction with parenting. This work could have implications for the understanding of key processes in early socioemotional development. The experimental component assesses whether physical contact serves not just as a regulator of infant distress, but as a promoter of coordination and mutual responsivity between mothers and infants. The longitudinal component provides an examination of the developmental progression from initially mutually controlled, to self-directed regulation, as well as an assessment of early co- regulation as a window onto the "attachment-in-the-making" phase - a relatively neglected period of relationship formation in the empirical attachment literature since the advent of measures that are not valid until a theoretically stable attachment representation exists.