The link between maternal interaction style and infant action understanding

• Published in: Infant behavior & development Vol. 31; no. 1; pp. 115 - 126
• Main Authors: Hofer, Tanja, Hohenberger, Annette, Hauf, Petra, Aschersleben, Gisa
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY Elsevier Inc 2008; Elsevier
• Subjects: Adult; Biological and medical sciences; Child Development; Cluster Analysis; Developmental psychology; Early action understanding; Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Goal-directed actions; Humans; Infant; Infants; Male; Maternal interaction style; Mental Processes - physiology; Mother-Child Relations; Mothers - psychology; Newborn. Infant; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Reproducibility of Results; Sensitivity and Specificity; Maternal interaction style; Infants; Early action understanding; Goal-directed actions; Social environment; Human; Parental behavior; Action; Goal directed movement; Infant; Mother child relation; Comprehension; Maternal behavior; Social interaction; Family environment; Motricity
• ISSN: 0163-6383; 1879-0453; 1934-8800
• DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2007.07.003

The present study investigates whether the maternal interaction style is related to 6-month-old infants’ action interpretation. We tested 6-month-olds ability to interpret an unfamiliar human action as goal-directed using a modified version of the paradigm used by Woodward, A. L. (1999). Infant's ability to distinguish between purposeful and non-purposeful behaviours. Infant Behavior & Development, 22, 145–160 and Király, I., Jovanovic, B., Prinz, W., Aschersleben, G., & Gergely, G. (2003). The early origins of goal attribution in infancy. Consciousness & Cognition, 12, 732–751 . Additionally, all infants and their mothers participated in a free play situation to assess maternal interaction styles as measured by the CARE-Index. According to mothers’ distinct interaction styles, infants were divided into three groups. Results suggest that at 6 months of age infants of mothers with a modestly controlling interaction style are better at interpreting a human action as goal-directed than infants of sensitive and relative unresponsive mothers. The ability to understand human action as goal-directed might be a corollary of an adaptive strategy in infancy.