Early gender differences in infants' social emotional behavior during mother-infant and father-infant interactions will be evaluated longitudinally at 3 and 6 months of infant age. 96 infants (48 boys, 48 girls) and their mothers and fathers will participate in the study. At each age, infants will be videotaped during a 3-minute face-to-face social interaction with each parent. Parents will also provide demographic information and independently complete self-report instruments that assess their emotional state, perceptions of infant temperament, parenting goals, adaptation to parenthood, social support, marital adjustment, and involvement in infant caretaking. The videotapes of the infants', mothers', and fathers' behavior and facial expressions will be scored microanalytically using the Infant Regulatory Scoring System (IRSS), the Adult Interactant Regulatory Scoring System (AIRSS), and Izard's AFFEX system. Gender-related differences in maternal and paternal social emotional behavior as well as dyadic features of infant-parent interactions will be assessed. Specific hypotheses guided by the Mutual Regulation Model and prior research are proposed. It is hypothesized that infant boys are less able than infant girls to regulate their affective states during parent-infant interaction. Moreover, fathers are hypothesized to be more likely than mothers to have an arousing interactive style. Behavioral and affective differences among cross-gender pairs of infants and parents are also hypothesized as are the effects of contextual variables such as marital adjustment. Fathers and mothers play different roles in the development of infant affect regulation. Children may also develop different behavior patterns from each parent, and these different dyadic experiences may have ramifications for their socio-personality development. However, it remains unclear how the characteristics of mother-infant and father-infant interactions affect the development of socio-emotional and regulatory behavior in male and female infants and the ontogenesis of gender-related differences in later psychological functioning. Thus, the proposed project will add significantly to the extant literature on gender differences in early infancy, extend theories of normal social development, and guide future research. %%% Early gender differences in infants' social emotional behavior during mother-infant and father-infant interactions will be evaluated at 3 and 6 months of infant age. At each age, 96 infants (48 boys, 48 girls) will be videotaped during social interaction with their mother and their father. In addition, each parent's emotional state, perceptions of infant temperament, parenting goals, adaptation to parenthood, social support, marital adjustment, and involvement in infant caretaking will be assessed. This project is unique in evaluating gender differences in the social emotional interactive behavior of infants under one year of age with their mothers and, in particular, their fathers. The study will examine whether and how infants develop different behavior patterns from each parent and whether this influences their social and personality development. The study will also evaluate the different roles fathers and mothers play in the development of infants' ability to control impulses, anger, and aggression. A focus on these issues is of critical importance and will significantly add to our understanding of the origin of gender-related differences in later psychological functioning (such as higher rates of aggressive behavior in male children). The American family is changing and an increasing number of children are growing up without a father at home. This project, by evaluating the role fathers and mothers play in the social and emotional development of their sons and daughters, will begin to address this important issue.
