This paper reports the effects of one hour of extra post-partum contact between mother and infant on the quality of the attachment observed when the infant was one year old. It was hypothesized that infants in the extra contact condition would be classified as securely attached while regular contact infants would be less frequently classified as…

Attempts to replicate Ainsworth's Baltimore study by conducting lengthy home observations of mother-infant interactions before observing the infants in the strange situation. (NH)

Tests the hypothesis that, while the difference in rate of smiling to O degree v non-O degree orientations will diminish with increasing age with silent and/or unfamiliar faces, infants over 14 weeks of age should continue to discriminate between a talking familiar 0 degree face, and all other combinations of orientation, familiarity, and silent…

Mothers' emotion and personality characteristics were assessed by behavior ratings and self-reports; infants' characteristics by maternal reports and objective coding. Security of infant-mother attachment in the Ainsworth Strange Situation was predicted by mothers' emotional experience, expressive behavior, and personality traits, and by infants'…

A study explored whether socioeconomic status (SES) differences could be detected in 3-month-old infants' differential vocal responsiveness (DVR) to mothers versus strangers. The study also explored whether 3-month-olds' DVR was related to environmental variables, such as the mother's behaviors toward the infant in naturalistic conditions, the…

Maternal and infant interactional characteristics in early infancy were investigated in order to examine their causal relationship with later attachment as assessed in the Strange Situation. Although the results of rating for maternal variables at four months of age exhibited significant differences between the set (S1) composed of attachment type…

Presents some practical suggestions on how teachers, students, and child-care workers can help infants cope with changes that may occur with adoption and foster care at various early ages. (Author/CS)

Differences in 3-month-old infants' vocal responsiveness to vocal-visual stimulation by mothers and strangers has been shown to be related to performance on both the Stanford-Binet at 3 years of age and the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistics at 5 years of age. The present retesting of 12 of the original 14 normal, first-born male subjects, now 12…

The ability of infants to recognize their mothers as distinct from others was investigated by presenting 6 boys and 6 girls at two age levels (5 weeks and 13 weeks) with the following six sequential stimulus conditions: (1) mother's face (MO); (2) stranger's face (SO); (3) mother's face with stranger's voice (MS); (4) stranger's face with mother's…

This paper reports an 18-month investigation of the differential effects of social context (i.e., characteristics of people in the child's immediate environment) on infants' positive social behavior. The social behaviors of 14 children from 1 to 2-1/2 years of age were observed at home and in a laboratory playroom. The social context was varied…

This study investigated at the age at which infants become able to discriminate between their mothers and females strangers, as measured by differential patterns of pauses during the infants' crying while being spoken to by their mothers and female strangers. The subjects, 14 infants ranging in age from 7 to 20 days, were fed, burped, and changed,…

The Ainsworth-Wittig strange situation was used to compare 12 42-month-old children with approximately 6 months of day care experience to individually matched children who had not had group child rearing experience. Results did not support the idea that day-care experience impairs attachment to the mother. (JMB)

Discusses observations of sets of infant twins, aged 6 to 24 months, as they interacted with one another and with an unfamiliar peer. Assesses quality of infant-mother attachment. Finds twins are more likely to react with one another than with a peer. Results are discussed in relation to early peer relationships and attachment. (Author/RWB)

Examined home-reared and institutionalized infants in Greece to find sex differences in social-vocal behaviors as assessed by Differential Vocal Responsiveness (DVR) to mother/caretaker versus stranger interactions. Results suggest that early differences in vocal-interactional patterns, and possibly cognitive processing, may be attributable to…