Temperament and Parenting: Exploring Pathways to Infant Social Attention

The origin of individual differences in infant social attention is not yet well understood. Previous research suggests two different possibilities: One explains these differences with varying experiences in parent-child interaction styles (Dunphy-Lelii et al., 2014), while the other points at differences in infant temperament as a central factor (LaBounty et al., 2018). There is a lack of published research combining these two approaches in a single study. The goal of this study is to test whether parent-child interaction as well as temperament are able to predict later infant social attention. We further wish to compare the predictive power of these two constructs with each other and investigate whether shy temperament in early toddlerhood is related to social attention as well. Data from a longitudinal sample of mother-child dyads from a mid-sized city in Germany are being investigated. A total of 165 dyads took part in this study, though only a subset of the complete sample will be relevant for our work. Mother-child interaction was measured via video-taped observations of a free play session using the Emotional Availability Scales (Biringen, 2008) at 6 months. Infant temperament was assessed with the Infant Behavior Questionnaire Revised (Gartstein & Rothbart, 2003) at 6 months, while shy temperament was assessed with the Early Childhood Behavior Questionnaire (Putnam et al., 2006) at 18 months. A habituation paradigm was employed to measure infant social attention at 12 months.