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Given the large numbers of families with more than one child, understanding similarities and differences in siblings' behaviors and in parents' interactions with their sibling infants is an important goal for advancing more representative developmental science. This study employed a within-family design to examine mean-level consistency and individual-order agreement in 5-month-old sibling behaviors and maternal parenting practices with their firstborns and secondborns (ns = 61 mothers and 122 infants). Each infant was seen independently with mother. Firstborn infants were more social with their mothers and engaged in more exploration with objects than secondborn infants; firstborn and secondborn infants' behaviors were correlated for smiling, distress communication, and efficiency of exploration. Mothers engaged in more physical encouragement, social exchange, didactic interaction, material provisioning, and language with their firstborns than with their secondborns. Notably, only maternal nurturing (e.g., feeding, holding) did not differ in mean level when mothers were with their two infants. However, mean differences in mothers' social exchange and material provisioning with their two children attenuated to nonsignificance when controlling for differences in siblings' behaviors. Individual-order agreement of mothers' behaviors with firstborn and secondborn infants (across an average of almost 3 years) was only moderate. These findings suggest that mother-firstborn interactions may differ from mother-secondborn interactions. Future research should move beyond studying mother-firstborn dyads to understand broader family and developmental processes., (Copyright © 2019. Published by Elsevier Inc.)

In a large-scale (N = 317) prospective 8-year longitudinal multiage, multidomain, multivariate, multisource study, we tested a conservative three-term model linking parenting cognitions in toddlerhood to parenting practices in preschool to classroom externalizing behavior in middle childhood, controlling for earlier parenting practices and child externalizing behavior. Mothers who were more knowledgeable, satisfied, and attributed successes in their parenting to themselves when their toddlers were 20 months of age engaged in increased supportive parenting during joint activity tasks 2 years later when their children were 4 years of age, and 6 years after that their 10-year-olds were rated by teachers as having fewer classroom externalizing behavior problems. This developmental cascade of a "standard model" of parenting applied equally to families with girls and boys, and the cascade from parenting attributions to supportive parenting to child externalizing behavior obtained independent of 12 child, parent, and family covariates. Conceptualizing socialization in terms of cascades helps to identify points of effective intervention.

This report coordinates assessments of five types of behavioral responses in new mothers to their own infants' cries with neurobiological responses in new mothers to their own infants' cries and in experienced mothers and inexperienced nonmothers to infant cries and other emotional and control sounds. We found that 684 new primipara mothers in 11 countries (Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Cameroon, France, Kenya, Israel, Italy, Japan, South Korea, and the United States) preferentially responded to their infants' vocalizing distress by picking up and holding and by talking to their infants, as opposed to displaying affection, distracting, or nurturing. Complementary functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) analyses of brain responses to their own infants' cries in 43 new primipara US mothers revealed enhanced activity in concordant brain territories linked to the intention to move and to speak, to process auditory stimulation, and to caregive [supplementary motor area (SMA), inferior frontal regions, superior temporal regions, midbrain, and striatum]. Further, fMRI brain responses to infant cries in 50 Chinese and Italian mothers replicated, extended, and, through parcellation, refined the results. Brains of inexperienced nonmothers activated differently. Culturally common responses to own infant cry coupled with corresponding fMRI findings to own infant and to generic infant cries identified specific, common, and automatic caregiving reactions in mothers to infant vocal expressions of distress and point to their putative neurobiological bases. Candidate behaviors embedded in the nervous systems of human caregivers lie at the intersection of evolutionary biology and developmental cultural psychology., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest.

The developmental science literature is riven with respect to (a) parental similar versus different treatment of siblings and (b) sibling similarities and differences. Most methodologies in the field are flawed or confounded. To address these issues, this study employed a within-family longitudinal design to examine developmental processes of continuity and stability in emotional interactions in mothers with their firstborn and secondborn 5-month-old infants (ns = 61 mothers and 122 infants). As independently rated by the Emotional Availability Scales, mothers' observed and coded behavioral expressions of sensitivity, structuring, nonintrusiveness, and nonhostility were consistent in group mean levels between firstborns and secondborns and (largely) between daughters and sons. Neither firstborns and secondborns, nor girls and boys, differed in their responsiveness or involvement of mother. However, mothers' emotional interactions with their firstborn and secondborn children were uncorrelated, as were firstborn and secondborn infants' interactions with their mother. These group-mean consistencies and individual-differences inconsistencies in emotional interactions are discussed in relation to the shared and nonshared lives of siblings in the same family. (PsycINFO Database Record, ((c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).)

Mother-infant vocal interactions serve multiple functions in child development, but it remains unclear whether key features of these interactions are community-common or community-specific. We examined rates, interrelations, and contingencies of vocal interactions in 684 mothers and their 5½-month-old infants in diverse communities in 11 countries (Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Cameroon, France, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, South Korea, and the United States). Rates of mothers' and infants' vocalizations varied widely across communities and were uncorrelated. However, collapsing the data across communities, we found that mothers' vocalizations to infants were contingent on the offset of the infants' nondistress vocalizing, infants' vocalizations were contingent on the offset of their mothers' vocalizing, and maternal and infant contingencies were significantly correlated. These findings point to the beginnings of dyadic conversational turn taking. Despite broad differences in the overall talkativeness of mothers and infants, maternal and infant contingent vocal responsiveness is found across communities, supporting essential functions of turn taking in early-childhood socialization., (© The Author(s) 2015.)

Cultural variation in relations and moment-to-moment contingencies of infant-mother person-oriented and object-oriented interactions were compared in 118 Japanese, Japanese American immigrant, and European American dyads with 5.5-month-olds. Infant and mother person-oriented behaviors were related in all cultural groups, but infant and mother object-oriented behaviors were related only among European Americans. Infant and mother behaviors within each modality were mutually contingent in all groups. Culture moderated lead-lag relations: Japanese infants were more likely than their mothers to respond in object-oriented interactions; European American mothers were more likely than their infants to respond in person-oriented interactions. Japanese American dyads behaved like European American dyads. Interactions, infant effects, and parent socialization findings are set in cultural and accultural models of infant-mother transactions., (© 2012 The Authors. Child Development © 2012 Society for Research in Child Development, Inc.)

This prospective longitudinal study examines emotional relationships in 58 Appalachian mother-child dyads observed at home at 5 and 20 months. Between infancy and toddlerhood, 3 of 4 dimensions of dyadic emotional relationships were stable, and three remained continuous in their mean level. Increasing maternal age was associated with greater maternal sensitivity and structuring and with more responsive and involving children. Marital status and father presence in the home as well as maternal openness, parenting knowledge, investment, and satisfaction accounted for effects of maternal age on dyadic emotional relationships. This longitudinal process analysis provides unique insights into temporal dynamics of mother-child emotional relationships and their determinants in an underserved and underresearched US community. Implications for community-specific interventions are discussed.

Contingencies of three maternal and two infant socioemotional behaviors that are universal components of mother-infant interaction were investigated at 5 months in 62 mothers (31 who had adopted domestically and 31 who had given birth) and their first children (16 males in each group). Patterns of contingent responding were largely comparable in dyads by adoption and birth, although the two groups of mothers responded differentially to the two types of infant signals. Mothers in both groups were more responsive than infants in social and vocal interactions, but infants were more responsive in maternal speech-infant attention interactions. Family type × gender statistical interactions suggested a possible differential role of infant gender in establishing mother-infant contingencies in families by adoption and birth., (Published by Elsevier Inc.)

An overview of the literature pertaining to the construct of emotional availability is presented, illustrated by a sampling of relevant studies. Methodological, statistical, and conceptual problems in the existing corpus of research are discussed, and suggestions for improving future investigations of this important construct are offered.

This study assesses whether the stresses associated with parenting a child are indirectly related to adolescent self-concept through parenting behaviors. We examined longitudinal associations among mothers' and fathers' parenting stress at age 10, children's perceptions of parenting at age 10, and adolescents' self-concept at age 14 in 120 European American families. Mothers' and fathers' parenting stress was related to children's perceptions of acceptance and psychologically controlling behavior, and psychologically controlling behavior (and lax control for fathers) was related to adolescent self-concept. We further examined which domains of parenting stress and perceived parenting behaviors were associated with adolescents' scholastic competence, social acceptance, physical appearance, and behavioral conduct. Parenting stress was related to specific parenting behaviors, which were, in turn, related to specific domains of self-concept in adolescence. Parenting stress appears to exert its effects on early adolescent self-concept indirectly through perceived parenting behavior., (Copyright 2008 APA, all rights reserved.)

This study used a cross-national framework to examine country, region, and gender differences in emotional availability (EA), a prominent index of mutual socioemotional adaptation in the parent-child dyad. Altogether 220 Argentine, Italian, and U.S. mothers and their daughters and sons from both rural and metropolitan areas took part in home observations when the children were 20 months old. In terms of country, Italian mothers were more sensitive and optimally structuring, and Italian children were more responsive and involving, than Argentine and U.S. dyads. In terms of region, rural mothers were more intrusive than metropolitan mothers, and boys from metropolitan areas were more responsive than boys from rural areas. In terms of gender, mothers of girls were more sensitive and optimally structuring than mothers of boys, and daughters were more responsive and involving than sons. Understanding how country, region, and gender influence EA exposes forces that shape child development, parent-infant interaction, and family systems., ((PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved).)