Relating measures of maternal responsivity to selected aspects of infant learning and affect

Twenty mothers and their 12-month old infants were studied during and independent of reciprocal interactions. Mothers were assessed on two measures of responsivity to infant signals: Accuracy of their responses to infant signals on a videotape and the accuracy and contiguity (contingency) of their behavior during a play interaction with their infant. Infant behavior was measured on an acquisition task and during a frustration task. Infant social behavior during the frustration task was measured by approaches to the mother or to the experimenter. In addition, infant affect was rated during each task. These measures were designed to reflect the current emphasis in the developmental and clinical literature on responsivity of maternal behavior and to begin to develop measures of maternal and infant behavior (and their interactions) that are compatible with the experimental learning literature. Chi-square and correlational analyses yielded moderately significant relationships between both measures of maternal responsivity and infant acquisition (with more responsive mothers having infants with shorter times and fewer responses to reach an acquisition criterion) and infant behavior during frustration (infants having more responsive mothers persisted for a shorter time). Infant approaches to their mothers were not related to mothers' responsivity scores in the predicted manner