Effect of maternal behaviours on infant emotional regulation

Abstract

In the early years of life, infants rely largely on external processes from their caregivers, usually their mothers, to help modulate their emotional experiences. Mother-infant interactions are known to be able to both emotionally arouse and calm an infant. Therefore, the current study aims to (1) examine the effect of maternal touch on the emotional activation of an infant; and (2) examine the effect of maternal vocalisation on the emotional activation of an infant through the use of a modified Strange Situation Procedure (SSP), termed the Brief Separation and Reunion (BSR) procedure. The BSR procedure consists of 3 phases: (1) Interaction, (2) Separation, and (3) Reunion, which each last for 2 minutes. In this study, the BSR was repeated two times with each mother-infant dyad. Electrocardiography was used to measure the infants’ (n = 33) heart rate variability in relation to the frequency of maternal behaviours (touch and vocalisation). Results showed that surprisingly, maternal touch during the interaction seemed to increase the physiological activation of infants in the separation phase, which is inconsistent with existing literature. Maternal vocalisation was also discovered to have a calming effect on the infants in the reunion phase. Overall, our results suggest the existence of differing effects of maternal touch and vocalisations based on how activated an infant is, and suggests that there may be a difference in effect on an infants’ emotional regulation depending on the type of touch or vocalisation that is utilised by the mother in their attempts to calm their child.