In a sample of 7,695 families in the prospective, nationally representative British Millennium Cohort Study, this study examined whether characteristics of the 1st-born child predicted parents' timing and probability of having another child within 5 years after the 1st child's birth. Infant temperament was assessed with the Carey Infant…

Relations of maternal and child characteristics to child cortisol reactivity to and recovery from emotional arousal were examined prospectively at approximately 7 months of age (infancy) and then again at approximately 15 months of age (toddlerhood). The sample was diverse and population based (N = 1,292 mother-infant dyads) and included families…

In three experiments, one-year-old infants were observed responding to mechanical, noise-making toys that operated predictably or unpredictably. Interest centered on (1) whether increasing temporal predictability would reduce distress, (2) causes of reduction in distress, and (3) the role of information about the onset of each bout of stimulation…

This study examined how children's insecure internal representations of interparental and parent-child relationships served as explanatory mechanisms in multiple pathways linking interparental conflict and parent emotional unavailability with the emotional and classroom engagement difficulties the children had in their adjustment to school. With…

Young infants use caregivers' emotional expressions to guide their behavior in novel, ambiguous situations. This skill, known as social referencing, likely involves at least 3 separate abilities: (a) looking at an adult in an unfamiliar situation, (b) associating that adult's emotion with the novel situation, and (c) regulating their own…

Investigates psychophysiological reactions of 60 women to an infant's cry and to a control sound. The 30-second pain cry evoked greater cardiac and electrodermal activity than did the control stimulus, although selected groups varied in the nature and extent of their reactions. Both maternal state and experience with infants affected reactions.…

Revealed a pattern of infant hemiface expressive asymmetry not predicted from adult-based models of emotional asymmetries. Infants' right hemiface bias resides in the actual expressive configuration of the central facial features, rather than in peripheral aspects of the face. (RH)

This study used a developmental-ecological approach to investigate the relationship across the school year between early problems in preschool classroom situations and a comprehensive set of readiness competencies for urban low-income children. Study 1 identified 3 reliable and unique underlying classroom situational dimensions where behavior…

The facial expressions of twenty-eight 13-month-old middle-class children were videotaped during the 3-minute separation episode of the Ainsworth strange-situation procedure. Anger was the dominant negative emotion expressed by the majority of children; patterns of emotion expression varied with type of attachment; and the proportion of time anger…

Examined whether an infant's reaction to a stranger would be indirectly influenced by the infant observing a stranger-third party interaction. Subjects were 45 15-month-old infants. Results suggest indirect effects influence social interactions and show that significant others can play an important role in mediating these effects. (Author/RH)

First- and third-graders' emotion dissimulation in a disappointing gift task was compared with their degree of dissimulation in a highly motivating game task that required the same ability but involved a self-gain motive. Although boys reduced their expression of negative affect in the game task, they still showed higher levels of negativity than…

Three experiments examined developmental change in children's understanding of regret and relief, two second-order emotions whose quality depends on a comparison between reality and "what might have been." In Experiment 1, participants 7 years of age and older, but not 5-year-olds, made regret-related emotion-response judgments that took into…

This article presents an argument, based on psychological research and inferences about human evolution, for the plausibility of an intrinsic altruistic motive. A theoretical model for the development of such a motive is outlined. (JMB)