”How do they feel when a baby cries?” Relationships between maternal characteristics and their perception of infant crying.

MASOPUSTOVÁ, Zuzana and Ondřej BOUŠA. ”How do they feel when a baby cries?” Relationships between maternal characteristics and their perception of infant crying. In European Conference on Developmental Psychology, 23. – 27. 8. 2011, Bergen, Norway. Bologna, Italy: MEDIMOND, 2012, p. 201 - 207. ISBN 978-88-7587-636-4.

Basic information

• Original name: ”How do they feel when a baby cries?” Relationships between maternal characteristics and their perception of infant crying.
• Authors: MASOPUSTOVÁ, Zuzana (203 Czech Republic, guarantor, belonging to the institution) and Ondřej BOUŠA (203 Czech Republic, belonging to the institution).
• Edition: Bologna, Italy, European Conference on Developmental Psychology, 23. – 27. 8. 2011, Bergen, Norway. p. 201 - 207, 7 pp. 2012.
• Publisher: MEDIMOND

Other information

• Original language: English
• Type of outcome: Proceedings paper
• Field of Study: 50100 5.1 Psychology and cognitive sciences
• Country of publisher: Norway
• Confidentiality degree: is not subject to a state or trade secret
• Publication form: printed version "print"
• RIV identification code: RIV/00216224:14230/12:00059240
• Organization unit: Faculty of Social Studies
• ISBN: 978-88-7587-636-4
• UT WoS: 000305209800036
• Keywords in English: Infant crying; mother-child interactions; maternal trait anxiety

Abstract

Problematic or inconsolable Infant crying is considered to cause one of the first problems in mother-child interactions. Mother's ability to soothe her infant depends not only on infant's soothability but also on her perception of the cry and on her emotional responses to it. The links between infant crying behaviour, maternal characteristics (anxiety, depression, maternal self-esteem) and maternal perception and emotional responses to the unknown infant's cry will be discussed in this study. The data on 300 women were collected during their pregnancy and after delivery. Maternal psychological characteristics were obtained from self-report questionnaires (STAI-T, BDI-II, MSRI-s) during the first data collection (in the third trimester of pregnancy). The data about infant's health, crying, eating and sleeping behaviour were obtained during the second data collection (between 4th and 8th week after delivery). The second data collection also included the original questionnaire Feelings about Infant Crying and Infant Crying Characteristics (inspired by Zeifman, 2003). Respondents were asked to see a videoclip of an unknown crying and fussing infant and then to rate (on 7-point Likert scale) their agreement/disagreement with adjectives describing the infant's crying and fussing behaviour and with subjectives describing their feelings about the behaviour. Factor analysis extracted three factors from each of both parts of the questionnaire. The relationships between maternal characteristics and their perception of infant crying and emotional response to it were found. The impact of these links on the perception of infant crying and on mother-infant interactons will be disccused.

Links

• MSM0021622406, plan (intention): Name: Psychologické a sociální charakteristiky dětí, mládeže a rodiny, vývoj osobnosti v době proměn moderní společnosti

Investor: Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the CR, Psychological and social characteristics of children, youth and families, development of the personality in the time of changes of modern society