Mutual Regulatory Processes in Black Mother-Infant Dyads

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The primary goal of this revised grant is to increase our understanding of the socio-emotional development of young children of African heritage by carrying out secondary analyses on already-collected longitudinal data. Specifically, we propose to evaluate the mutual regulatory (MR) processes (i.e., synchrony, affect sharing or matching, reparation from uncoordinated to coordinated affective states, bi-directionality, and maternal regulatory responsiveness) that take place between 163 adult mothers of African heritage (African American or Black) varying in SES and their full-term healthy infants (50% female) at 12 and 18 months of age. Subjects were participants in a completed longitudinal study that was partially funded by the Spencer Foundation (M. Beeghly, PI) and partially by our own resources. Analyses in the present study will be based on videotapes made in two contrasting (structured and unstructured) interactive contexts at each age. The specific aims are to: 1] evaluate the relative stability of MR scores across context and age, and the effect of child gender, age, interactive context on MR processes; 2] evaluate the relation of MR variables to specific biologic and social contextual variables (difficult child temperament, maternal psychosocial adaptation, social support, family environment, SES), including specific variables identified as being especially relevant to Black families (i.e., variations in household composition, social support, and child rearing attitudes such as warmth versus strictness, and racial socialization), 3] evaluate whether MR variables assessed at 12 or 18 months are related to four domains of children's outcomes at 18 months (self-regulatory behavior observed during solitary play, attachment status, language skills, and general cognitive functioning), each of which have been linked with children's positive functioning in later childhood, and 4] evaluate whether MR variables at each age mediate the relation between contextual variables and child outcomes. Child and maternal affect and dyadic behavior will be coded micro-analytically from videotapes of mother-child interaction in each context at each age using a single scoring system, the Child Caregiver Mutual Regulation (CCMR) system. Time series analysis will be used to generate MR variables representing dyadic affect sharing, reparation, synchrony, and bi-directionality, and sequential data analytic techniques will be used to generate variables describing maternal regulatory responsiveness to child behavior. This study will be among the first to evaluate longitudinally multiple MR processes within a single-racial sample of Black mothers and healthy term infants varying in SES during the second year of life. Findings will significantly increase our understanding of individual differences in the mother-child relationship in this cohort and will provide valuable information to inform and guide future research as well as the design of more effective prevention and intervention services for higher risk groups of Black mother-infant dyads and their families.