Journal Article

Temporal Contingency as an Independent Component of Parenting Behavior

Lohaus, Arnold, Völker, Susanne, Chasiotis, Athanasios, Keller, Heidi, Cappenberg, Martina

1999

Overview

Several theoretical conceptions emphasize the importance of prompt responses to infant's signals in providing them with early causal experiences. The present paper examines if a maternal tendency toward prompt responses can be identified by distributional analyses of maternal response latencies and if this response tendency can be shown for different communicative channels (in verbal/vocal, nonverbal, intermodal communication). In addition, the paper focuses on the relation between the temporal contingency of maternal behavior and measures of maternal interactional quality. Interactional sequences of 54 mother and 3-month-old infant dyads were analyzed using microanalytical assessment techniques and ratings of interactional quality. Distributional analyses of maternal expressions during face-to-face encounters revealed that promptness of responses toward infant signals with a short latency is a typical response tendency in maternal behavior. There are, however, individual differences between mothers, indicating that this response tendency is expressed in different communicative channels by individual mothers. This is shown by low correlations between the contingency indices of different communicative channels. The relation between contingency and rated indicators of interactional quality turned out to be rather small, indicating that maternal contingency may be conceptualized to contribute an independent factor to the quality of maternal interactional behavior.

• Publisher: Blackwell Publishers Inc,Blackwell Publishers,Blackwell,University of Chicago Press for the Society for Research in Child Development, etc,Oxford University Press
• Subject: Animal parental behavior / Biological and medical sciences / Child development / Children / Contingencies / Couple and family / Eye contact / Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology / Individual Differences / Infants / Maternal behavior / Mother-baby interactions / Mothers / Nonverbal communication / Parent Child Relationship / Parenting / Parents & parenting / Personality and Social Development / Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry / Psychology. Psychophysiology / Reaction time / Responsiveness / Social evolution / Social interaction / Social psychology / Temporal aspects / Theories / Verbal communication / Vocalized behavior