Does parental autonomy support mediate the relation between parent and infant executive function? A study of mothers and fathers in the Netherlands and China.

Parenting skills, such as Autonomy Support (AS), have been proposed as a potential mechanism explaining the intergenerational contiguity of Executive Function (EF). However, few studies have focused on mothers and fathers among non-Western families. The current study investigated the role of maternal and paternal AS in the relation between parental EF and infant EF at 14 months of age among 123 Dutch and 63 Chinese first-time mothers and fathers and their infants. Multiple-group structural equation models were built for mothers and fathers separately with country as a grouping variable. Results showed that parental AS did not mediate the relation between parent EF and infant EF at 14 months. Mean-level differences were found in parental AS, maternal EF, and infant inhibition across countries, while no country differences were found in the relation between parent EF, AS and infant EF. Our findings suggested that individual differences in early EF may not be stable enough to be reliably predicted from parental factors across the Netherlands and China.

Narrative coherence across the transition to parenthood: Primiparous parents' representations of their child in relation to parental sensitivity.

Narrative coherence reflects parents' ability to provide a believable, clear, relevant, and internally consistent story about their child. Parents demonstrating more narrative coherence have been theorized to show higher parental sensitivity, but this has not been examined in a normative sample, nor across the transition to parenthood, and only once in fathers. The aim of this study was to examine stability and change in narrative coherence across the transition to parenthood in mothers and fathers, as well as the relation between pre- and postnatal narrative coherence and postnatal parental sensitivity. The sample consisted of 105 primiparous expecting parents. Narrative coherence was measured at 36-weeks pregnancy and when the child was 4 months old, using the Five Minute Speech Sample procedure. Parental sensitivity was observed in three episodes. Results demonstrated that narrative coherence was moderately stable (correlations) across the transition to parenthood in fathers only. Both mothers' and fathers' narrative coherence improved over time. Furthermore, mothers and fathers were overall equally coherent, and maternal and paternal narrative coherence were positively interrelated during pregnancy only. Lastly, our findings showed weak evidence for the theorized link between narrative coherence and parental sensitivity: only postnatal narrative coherence predicted paternal sensitivity, only during free play. Our findings give new insight in the development of narrative coherence across the transition to parenthood, and how it relates to actual parenting. More research is needed to confirm our findings and further explore this topic.

The role of infant attention and parental sensitivity in infant cognitive development in the Netherlands and China.

Infant attention and parental sensitivity are important predictors of later child executive function (EF). However, most studies have investigated infant and parent factors in relation to child EF separately and included only mothers from Western samples. The current study examined whether both infant attention at 4 months and parental sensitivity at 4 and 14 months were related to infant EF (i.e., inhibition, working memory, and cognitive flexibility) at 14 months among 124 Dutch and 63 Chinese first-time mothers and fathers and their infants. Findings revealed that parental sensitivity at 4 months was not correlated with infant EF abilities at 14 months. However, infant attention at 4 months was significantly related to 14-month working memory, but not to inhibition and cognitive flexibility. Maternal sensitivity at 14 months was significantly related to 14-month inhibition, but not to working memory and cognitive flexibility. No country differences were found in the relation among 4-month infant attention, parental sensitivity, and EF outcomes. Results show that both infant and parent factors are associated with early EF development and that these correlates of early EF skills may be similar in Western and non-Western samples.

Attitudes about child maltreatment in China and the Netherlands.

BACKGROUND: Definitions of child maltreatment vary between studies, and few are informed by research in non-Western countries. OBJECTIVE: We examined attitudes about child maltreatment in China and the Netherlands. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING: The sample consisted of 304 participants from three groups (mothers, fathers, and teachers) and two countries (China and the Netherlands). METHODS: Participants completed the Maltreatment Q-sort in which 90 items reflecting four types of child maltreatment (physical abuse, emotional abuse, physical neglect, and emotional neglect) are divided in 9 stacks of 10 cards from least (1) to most (9) damaging to the child. RESULTS: The average within-country (r = .57) and within-group (r = .58) agreement about the order of harmfulness of the behaviors did not differ from the average between-country (r = .49) and between-group (r = .53) agreement. Physical abuse was seen as the most harmful form of child maltreatment and emotional neglect as the least harmful form (pƞ2 = .88). Higher thresholds were found for labeling the behaviors as child maltreatment, and the perceived need for intervention by a professional than for the need for intervention by a non-professional (pƞ2 = .67). These thresholds were higher for Chinese than for Dutch participants (pƞ2 = .31). CONCLUSIONS: The areas of agreement found are promising because successful collaboration within and between countries and groups could lead to more successful prevention and intervention of child maltreatment. The difference between China and the Netherlands however, stresses the importance of cultural sensitivity when implementing child maltreatment prevention and intervention programs.

Context matters: Maternal and paternal sensitivity to infants in four settings.

To date, results have been inconsistent in whether mothers show higher parental sensitivity to their infant than fathers do. The context in which sensitivity is measured may play a role in these inconsistent findings, but this has not been examined yet. The aim of the current study was to test context as a source of variability in parental sensitivity, comparing maternal and paternal sensitivity to infants in four different observational settings. Participants included 109 families with their 4-month-old infants. Parental sensitivity was observed during a routine caregiving session, free play episode, and the baseline and reunion of the Still Face Procedure. Results demonstrated that parental sensitivity showed weak to strong stability (correlations) across the four contexts. Furthermore, overall levels of parental sensitivity were higher in more naturalistic contexts (routine caregiving > free play > Still Face). Lastly, mothers and fathers were overall equally sensitive across contexts. Our findings highlight the importance of taking context into account when observing parental sensitivity in research as well as practice. Furthermore, future research should examine the emergence of possible differences in maternal and paternal sensitivity over time. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Thinking about you baby: Expectant parents' narratives suggest prenatal spillover for fathers.

The coherence of parents' narratives about their children, which is the extent to which descriptions are accepting, consistent and complex, are thought to reflect optimal information processing of interpersonal relations and as such facilitate sensitive and responsive parenting. However, despite recent meta-analytic findings that have demonstrated links between the nature of prenatal thoughts and feelings about the unborn infant and later parenting, studies have yet to examine the narrative coherence of expectant parents' descriptions of their infant and future parent-child relationship. This study reports on the novel use of the 5-minute speech sample to capture variation in the coherence of 400 first-time expectant parents' narratives describing their unborn infant and future relationship with them. On average, both expectant mothers and fathers struggled to provide a coherent description of their unborn infant. Coherence ratings did not show within-couple associations and were not related to either demographic characteristics, depressive symptoms or mode of conception (e.g., use of assisted reproductive technologies). An actor-partner interdependence model did however demonstrate that reduced couple relationship quality and life satisfaction were associated with lower levels of narrative coherence in fathers, but not mothers. Model constraints illustrated the coherence of expectant fathers' narratives about their infant and future parent-child relationship may be particularly vulnerable to the influence of the couple relationship. Future longitudinal work is needed to establish the direction of this effect, to explore the stability of narrative coherence across the transition to parenthood and to study links with postnatal parent-child interaction quality and child outcomes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

The effect of the still-face paradigm on infant behavior: A cross-cultural comparison between mothers and fathers.

Most still-face paradigm (SFP) studies have been done in Western families with infant-mother dyads. The present study investigated the SFP pattern in 123 Dutch and 63 Chinese 4-month-old infants with mothers and fathers. The classic SFP effect was found for positive affect and gaze in both countries. For negative affect, Chinese infants showed a different SFP pattern than Dutch infants. With fathers, infants displayed a less pronounced SFP pattern for positive affect and an increase from the still face to the reunion for negative affect. Only a minority of infants showed the expected SFP pattern across episodes. Our findings support that infant emotion expression is influenced by parent gender and cultural context. An interesting avenue for further study is the exploration of the origins of within- and between-gender and culture differences in affective communication between parents and infants.